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In addition to beautiful coastal scenery, Christmas Island also has a fantastic rainforest covering almost the entire island. To get to many places, we either had to drive, hike, or do both, going through the lush and often dense forest. It really felt tropical in the woodland with high humidity and damp character of the air present around us. It was the beginning of the wet season when we went and that further increased that feeling. We do not have any recognisable rainforest where we live so any time we visit one, we always enjoy it immensely.
On the way to one of the coastal locations we went past a couple of giant strangler fig trees, which are quite well known by the locals. This is the lower section and the sprawling buttress roots of one of these massive trees. The span of the roots would have to be at least fifteen metres in diameter, if not more. It was something straight out of dark fantasy landscapes. Moss growing over the roots added great touches of colour and the lush canopy filled the background on each side. Have a closer look and see if you can spot a coconut (robber) crab sitting atop one of the roots. There were lots of red crabs frolicking around as well but they are not distinguishable in this image.
When we first walked past this tree on the way to the coast, I took a few handheld photos at high ISO and wide open aperture. It was late afternoon and the light was already getting rather dim in the rainforest. The plan was to spend more time on the coast in case there was a great sunset but that did not happen so we walked back and the second time around I set up my tripod and wider lens to take more photos of this intriguing tree. I concentrated mostly on the roots to see if I could get good leading lines in my compositions. I walked around it a few times to find different perspectives when I spotted to coconut crab and decided to include it in one of the shots. There were a couple more of them around but they preferred to stay out of the picture.
It was getting darker and this was a twenty second exposure already. I was glad that the coconut crabs are rather slow creatures and luckily this one did not move during the exposure time to keep it nice and sharp. It was very calm as well so the leaves did not move about and I was able to use a long shutter speed without worrying about moving branches. The light was coming from the left and it allowed to create good depth and dimension to the scene. The tops of the roots were catching some of that light and they were separated nicely from the shadow areas. Only a single exposure was needed here, although I took a number of different shutter speed frames just to cover myself in case I needed them. Also, not too much processing work was need, other than the usual tonal and contrast adjustments to get the most of the available light and detail.
Woodlands do not feature extensively in my photo galleries and this was a great opportunity to photograph something different. It is not one of my traditional dreamy seascapes (there will be time for plenty more of these) or other landscapes but I hope you find it at least partly as fascinating as I did.
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