old twisted vines inside Empire Mines

In some of the garden areas of the Empire Mines, the vines were obviously twisted around trees and each other. In doing so, it created a strange ‘topping’ of vines completely matted together, full of leaves, and so dense that it allowed zero light to penetrate from above. It was an interesting study to try and shoot the stem/trunks without using the D80’s flash without allowing the background to be blown out by the harsh white sunlight. As you can see, it was darn near impossible so I used the flashed reference shot to show the vines.

I don’t know if the gardeners knew it would happen but the vines grow at a remarkably different rate than the trees they were sometimes wrapped around. So the vines could completely encompass a tree that would then grow and blow apart the massive vines in huge splits. None of those shots seemed to capture my attention because I’ll have to go back to get them as I have none. LOL!