Interview led by Editor Rob Darby

I want to start by saying that I specifically asked to write the piece on an image by  Majid Behzad  titled 'Trees and Pure Snow'  because I find it beautiful and intriguing.
It is both a unique and fresh point of view of a mountain scene.

'Trees and Pure Snow' by Majid Behzad

 
Dear Majid, can you tell us where the image was made and the idea behind it?
This photo was taken in an area called “Taleqan” in Alborz Province- Iran. Actually, I noticed two separate lines of trees merged together at the lower right corner while existing shadows made this scene looking three dimensional.

Did you have a preconceived idea of what you wanted to create, or did the image evolve during the shooting of the frame?
Not really preconceived idea actually! But the thing is when I saw those trees and lines in front of my eyes, I knew how to create the frame and even how to post process it to be able to evoke the viewer‘s emotion.

Can you share the settings of your camera?

Sure, please refer to the following attachment.

What sort of processing did you do to the image to create the finished product?
I always shoot in RAW format and accordingly basic adjustments were made to the RAW file in Adobe Camera Raw, and then the image was exported to Photoshop for the final adjustments.

First, I tried to enhance very initial touches like exposure, contrast, shadow and highlight in AC and accordingly white balance in a way to get more winter mood (cooler shades) rather than warmer colours which my camera set at the time of shooting automatically. At the same time, I removed some spots on the snow ground to make the image clean and more  uniform.

In Adobe Photoshop, I made a gaussian blur filter specially on the trees to become softer and then made a level adjustment layer (clipping mask) above to enhance brightwe area in layer below and finally set the layer opacity around 15%. (something like Orton Effect).

Final steps were adding colour balance adjustment and vignetting.

 
What was the emotion you experienced creating the image, and what emotion or idea were to trying to convey?
To tell the truth, it felt like the trees were a society, standing together and supporting each other to pass through a tough situation (winter) and waiting for a beautiful spring ahead! (finally both lines will come together).  At the same time, white snow emphasizes the purity of the scene and the hope for a bright future while some shadows (difficulty) are still there.

Anything else that you think is important to the image that you would like people to understand?
Yes, about the harmony in colours, the majority of picture is containing different shades of blue evoking a feeling of tranquility and peace.  But here I tried to also keep that little touch of mageanta coming from the trees in the colour combination in order to stay at Analogous Color Harmony (see the attachment here under).

Many thanks, Mejid, for your feedback and kind collaboration.