Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Not a primrose
This was taken on my annual expedition in which I fail to take an interesting picture of a primrose. After about a half hour I got distracted by the dead bracken.
This is very much my sort of photograph. A little detail. A bit of a pattern.
I'll be interested to read what you make of it.
Permalink / posted by and copyright of Colin [auspiciousdragon.net] : 3:38 PM
Comments:
A very nice black and white with a huge variation between the sharp foreground and the out of focus background into which my eyes keep burrowing (trying to make sense of things I suppose). Within there are strong hints that the blurred patters are the same plant species as the foreground.
There’s also a velvety quality to the surfaces of the bracken in the foreground. Like there’s a dusting of something. I like that a great deal and am wondering if that is as a result of any black and white conversion or whether the same exists on any colour version. There’s an almost infrared feel to it.
I’m not sure how it would work as a mounted print. My guess is that it would need to be mounted with a lot of blank space between the edges of the picture and any framing because the border is already very strong.
Good luck with future primrose expeditions!
I'm not sure, to be honest. I certainly go along with John-Jo about the technical quality and applaud the desire to explore how one might represent dead bracken. For farmers, bracken is a pain (it invades pasture and harbours the insect that passes on Lyme disease) and if one has it on one's land then it is a continual battle to get rid of it, or at least, keep it at bay. Thereafter, it exists as an abundance of green in the summer and a mass of brown in the winter, increasingly trodden down and less and less crunchy! As you can guess, I come at this with some prejudice! But, as with all vegetation in the countryside, bracken can be isolated in the way you have and examined as something in its own right and not as yet another species that man wants to wipe off the face of the earth. Does your picture transcend representation? I suppose it does: as J-J writes, about being drawn in to the depths, there is a small mystery of nature waiting to be explored. But it is more intellectual than pictorial - all prejudice set to one side! I think that, ultimately, there is slightly too much dead space in the centre.
Yes, primroses are difficult. I think that the last good one that I took was with a Kodak Brownie box camera in a Devon lane when I was about 8.
There are some nice technical qualities about this picture but, I am afraid, it does not hold my interest. The two bits of bracken are, to me, too far apart and I do not feel I get any message from it at all. Probably my loss but, as with every image, if you like it then it is a good picture.
interesting conversion here. looks a bit like solarized. compo works well with the focus middle left and right and the blurry BG.
My first look returned x-ray. As such I need more detail in the middle. The two ferns on either side provide great boarders but I'm afraid there's nothing in the middle to hold my interest. The two fairly sharp items top middle also detract. Technically no problem...but unfortunately not pleasing to my eys.
agree with Guy about the destracting top middle ferns. but I don't need a sweet spot in the middle to hold my interest. in opposite I like the unusual compo with the sharp spots left and right. makes it more interesting to me than a usually used sharp center.
I put my hand up and admit that I spent sometime looking at this image before any comments were made and then chickened out in order to see the comments of others first.
I am in the camp of "not doing much for me". I think it is brave and a departure from conventional composition but it doesn't quite work for me.
John E's comment about the evils of bracken strikes home here in the New Forest. Forest ponies get mouth cancer from eating the bracken and I have read that the pollen of bracken is not good for humans.
Perhaps the image does convey a bit of that evil???????
Biology: the ticks are a pain (although no Lyme around here according to the local GP). The bracken fights for space with the soft rush and the fox gloves. Not much room left for grass. Actually it is a real problem this spring. Lambs but no grass. The crofters are losing a lot of sheep.
Photo technical: the conversion was pretty straight, but I then played around a lot with the contrast. In effect there are three contrast curves applied to this picture (although Raw Developer works in a slightly different way). One overall contrast increase, one to deepen the darkest areas and one to create some separation in the in-focus leaves. This later creates the dusty effect that somebody mentioned.
Aesthetics: thanks for your varied comments. The slightly sharp area top centre is deliberate (I have a version without this which has too little central area even for my taste). I might, in retrospect, have got rid of the bright patch bottom left. As I implied in my posting, the bracken photos were a bit of a distraction, but once I saw the possibilities I was fascinated. These are really strong shapes. I've photographed bracken before, but only as a single flat strand (like a still life). Bracken is just a nuisance. Something ugly and dead in the winter time and full of pests in the summer. Or is it? Something to revisit.
Certainly something to revisit. This picture merits further appraisal and points up where to look. The so-called sharp bits don't disturb me and it is all a question of how much that 'x-ray' look holds across the centre. Maybe that right-hand frond needs to be sharper throughout?
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There’s also a velvety quality to the surfaces of the bracken in the foreground. Like there’s a dusting of something. I like that a great deal and am wondering if that is as a result of any black and white conversion or whether the same exists on any colour version. There’s an almost infrared feel to it.
I’m not sure how it would work as a mounted print. My guess is that it would need to be mounted with a lot of blank space between the edges of the picture and any framing because the border is already very strong.
Good luck with future primrose expeditions!
Yes, primroses are difficult. I think that the last good one that I took was with a Kodak Brownie box camera in a Devon lane when I was about 8.
I am in the camp of "not doing much for me". I think it is brave and a departure from conventional composition but it doesn't quite work for me.
John E's comment about the evils of bracken strikes home here in the New Forest. Forest ponies get mouth cancer from eating the bracken and I have read that the pollen of bracken is not good for humans.
Perhaps the image does convey a bit of that evil???????
Photo technical: the conversion was pretty straight, but I then played around a lot with the contrast. In effect there are three contrast curves applied to this picture (although Raw Developer works in a slightly different way). One overall contrast increase, one to deepen the darkest areas and one to create some separation in the in-focus leaves. This later creates the dusty effect that somebody mentioned.
Aesthetics: thanks for your varied comments. The slightly sharp area top centre is deliberate (I have a version without this which has too little central area even for my taste). I might, in retrospect, have got rid of the bright patch bottom left. As I implied in my posting, the bracken photos were a bit of a distraction, but once I saw the possibilities I was fascinated. These are really strong shapes. I've photographed bracken before, but only as a single flat strand (like a still life). Bracken is just a nuisance. Something ugly and dead in the winter time and full of pests in the summer. Or is it? Something to revisit.