Project 365 - Day 150 - Count the rings

We used to have this big spruce tree in front of our house.  The tree was growing into another tree, a birch tree that had divided at the trunk.  The unfortunate part was that the spruce was losing the battle for tree supremacy and was pretty much bare on one side.  The side that had all the branches was the side facing the house.  So, after many many wind storms lately and the fact that we recently had another spruce of the same age come down in front of the house, the decision was made to remove it before it caused damage.

The tree fellers came today.  They do very good work, and are a reputable company.  We have used them 3 times now, once to remove a tree that was literally hanging over our house, once to remove the spruce that fell and the third time to remove this new spruce.  Click here to go to their web site

The stump is still in the front lawn.  They are supposed to come back and grind it down, but until then I thought I would shoot it - of course.

Here's my shot.  Now, I played around a lot with this, adding contrast and bumping up the orange levels while dropping the yellows after making it black and white.  I like how you can make out the rings, and also the saw marks.  It is a pretty clean cut, not as photogenic as a flat smooth cut, but it is pretty cool.

I had this on my tripod pointing straight down.  I had another tripod with my SB600 for fill flash.  The flash was driven by pocketwizard.  My 24-70mm lens at 70mm and .5 sec shutter at f/22