The Giant
There’s a park just a few blocks away from my home.
TK and I will walk there a few times during the week; sometimes I do my morning runs around the perimeter; other times, I’ll just sit on a bench or in the grass watching the world go on around me.
I’m drawn to this place for so many reasons, but the main one is because of the trees.
They’re Grandiose. Historic. Monumental. Verdant. Alive.
When I stand before each one, I feel the reality of humanity pulsing through my feet pressed to the grass above the tree roots. They tower above, reminding me of their all-encompassing importance in the air I breathe.
They put reality in check.
“The Giant” by Stephanie Alexis Snyder
“It is this way with wonder: it takes a bit of patience and it takes putting yourself in the right place at the right time.”
How did I bring these moments to life? Here was my process.
I woke up bright and early—around 6AM. I had my outfit chosen in advance so it was a quick clean up and change.
My bag was packed: Sony a7iii, 85mm + 28mm lenses, memory cards, tripod, charged batteries and phone, laptop, a towel (I’ll explain), hat, and a few other odds and ends (extra lens wipes are always good!).
Why the towel? When you’re shooting photos outdoors, you never know where you’ll need to set your bag, what you’ll walk through if you’re barefoot, etc. It’s a helpful tool to have on hand.
I knew I needed to arrive to the park by 7:30AM—at the very latest. I’m not the only one who has fallen in love with it—the whole neighborhood congregates here with their dogs, especially on a Sunday morning.
TK and I trekked down the street to the park (I brought TK to assist with setup and then be my “body guard” the rest of the trip. It wasn’t necessary—it was just helpful to have him nearby and of course, I love his company).
I had scouted my spot the week prior. I always recommend scouting when you can. It helps to get a lay of the land, visualize the image and be prepared for the real thing. My original plan was to climb a tree, but after a storm took out branches a few days later, it felt strange to clamber along a tree branch for my benefit. So I pivoted.
I used TK to stand in where I would be so I could get the tripod and camera set just right. We took turns taking test shots, ensuring the composition was exactly what I was after.
Once we nailed down the spot, I took over while TK settled into his current read (for those wondering).
To achieve these self-portraits on my own, I will either use the timer setting on the camera, or I will lean on this app called Imaging Edge Mobile. This app will pair with your Sony camera, allowing you to see what your camera sees. The quality you see on the app is slightly lower, and it lags a tad. But, for the most part, it does exactly what I need it to do, which is to show me the composition while I’m in my pose and hit the shutter button (at the moment or on a timer) when I’m ready. For this shoot, I attempted to use the app, but ended up switching to the timer on the camera. The app pairing connection was too weak the further I moved away from the camera.
My lead story photograph, “The Giant”, is the image shown at the beginning of this blog post. This image took me quite a few shots to capture—I wanted to stand pretty much center of the trunk of The Giant, and I wanted to appear in action. I set the camera for 10 seconds and slowly walked with exaggerated movements toward the tree. All the while, dogs and owners passed over the hill (in the background). I wasn’t worried about the extras appearing here and there—I could edit them out later. My main focus was to get the right movement of my body along the imaginary line balanced with the tree. Over and over, I ran back to the camera and did the walk. I can only imagine what people thought—it was a funny sight. With a tilt of my head and just the right sway of my skirt, I felt the move hit after numerous shutters.
I decided to take advantage of the early morning light and the little time I had left to keep this quiet corner of the park to myself, so I shifted my composition, unplanned. What would the story say if it was told through a profile view? I quickly grabbed my things and pivoted the focus.
I set the camera and tripod equidistant to the last view but looking on from the left. The wind picked up and blew the trees ever so slightly. In that moment, I knew I wanted this sub-story of “The Giant” to be in action—a subtle sense of motion.
At least 10 times, I ran back and forth from the camera to a marked spot in the grass. I set the timer and turned on the Burst mode. This allows the camera to capture 3x consecutive images back to back, which can help capture subtle movement in action. This is how I created the GIF shown above, as well. If you look closely, you’ll notice my skirt swaying and off to the left of the frame the leaves of the tree are breathing ever so subtly. Burst mode is also how the photograph of the side-view with my hat in my hand came to be.
After numerous jogs between camera and tree, I felt the moment I went there for… a moment between human & nature.
Then I took to my editing tools: Adobe Bridge (to cull through images and choose my favorites) | Lightroom (to develop the tone and emotion through lighting and color) | Photoshop (for clean-up, burning & dodging, a little AI removing support, & GIF-making).
I’ve really enjoyed writing the process I went through in bringing “The Giant” to life above. It actually allowed me to revisit the memories and how I felt when I was creating this. While the above is more of a run-through of the technical elements and my schedule, there was a lot of emotion and energy used to bring life into these images.
I remember, at the start, I was running between the camera and my marked spot in the grass. I had to get used to the feeling of the movement, hitting the moment, and then thinking about the pose and my body posture. I had to put my mind in a space of connection with nature—my care for the tree and its’ purpose. I had to feel this from head to toe. I wasn’t just taking a photo. I was trying to convey a story.
You can feel it. The moment when you’ve hit your mark and fallen into the narrative. I bounded my way to the tree, looking up, feeling a sense of bliss, breathing in the fresh air, blocking out the world moving around me, watching the leaves on the tree sway, feeling the morning sunlight on my skin, and just being.
Then *click*.
Photographs are by Stephanie Snyder documented on Sony a7iii and edited using Adobe Creative Cloud.
