I’ve often complained (yes complained) that I live in the beautiful semi-urban/semi-rural Thousand Oaks area because there is limited street photography opportunities here. 45 miles out of LA and another 45 into Santa Barbara. It is the headquarters for several large corporations including Dole, Baxter, Amgen, and lots of B of A presence (used to be the home for CountryWide), the only walking traffic is at the shopping Malls, but the world famous Oxnard strawberry and raspberry fields are just 5 miles down the Camarillo grade. Suburban housing, both low-end and high, is surrounded by open space and hiking. Thousand Oaks didn’t get it’s name for nothing, the California Oak is protected here and can be seen on the street and in the hills.
When I go hiking I usually take my Oly E-PL2 micro-4/3rds (you’ll notice the 4×3 aspect ratio) and I’ve been collecting images of the local trees for over a year. I’m not a naturalist. I’m not a great landscape photographer. Instead I bring a street-style to capture the subtle patterns that emerge in the chaos of growth. And I always process them in B&W.
Trees present their own difficulties because they just sit there, and you have to work around them. Sometimes there is just too much nature in the way – and sometimes the best pictures come about by assuming very undignified positions. IMHO some of the best, and this includes yours, are the simplest ones, where the graphical elements are predominant and the details, while vast, do not override the image.