Sunday, July 02, 2006
Welsh RGB 2
Poppy and aquilegia. Late May, early June is a time when I get tempted to take a few flower shots.
Permalink / posted by and copyright of John Ellis : 7:05 AM
Comments:
An essence of Poppy picture.
The contrasts in the image hit me:
red-mauve-green
dark bg - light fg
texture fg - OoF bg.
The slight loss of sharpness on the immediate foreground adds to the 3D feel of the poppy.
Given that you have strong sunshine the detail in the poppy is well held. I was told not to photograph flowers in sunshine.......another rule bites the dust!
You should know by now Rex, there is no such things as rules. The lighting here is not the best to take a record shot of flowers but this isn't a record shot. I like the way the poppy is placed in the foreground leaving the background OOF but with enough to give an impression of the garden behind.
I do find the black area of the poppy a bit strong and would suggest lightening this.
I find this a bit overwhelming. A combination of the colours and the size of the poppy I think. I obviously live too sheltered a life - frightened by a poppy!
A tissue paper quality of the poppy comes through here but I'm having difficulty making sense of this as a picture of a poppy. Normally when this happens to me I latch on to metaphors such as the sun one in Colin’s recent yellow flower image. I’ve not found that escape with this one (yet).
Having said that, as a representation of the fragility of the poppy this might well work.
Technical point: this was taken in the evening so, although the sun was bright, the light was low and enabled the full dynamic range to be encompassed.
The picture was not supposed to represent the fragility of the poppy (it stands up for itself as well as many flowers) but to get in close and exploit (and celebrate) the colour. By choosing this angle and closeness, I was after an effect that was different to the normal poppy shot. That it frightens or confuses is, possibly, a virtue! Although I don't want to overuse Rex's term, the description of "essence" probably comes closest to my objective.
That's a lot of red there! But plenty of texture to break it all up. I'm sure there's detail in the balck centre of the poppy which could do with some attention to bring it out. The background is vague enough not to trouble the foreground yet there's still detail enough for me to work out what's there. While my eye happily passes over this shot (and I do like it) the black 'tear' about an inch in from bottom/left keeps bringing me back trying to work out what it actually is.
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The contrasts in the image hit me:
red-mauve-green
dark bg - light fg
texture fg - OoF bg.
The slight loss of sharpness on the immediate foreground adds to the 3D feel of the poppy.
Given that you have strong sunshine the detail in the poppy is well held. I was told not to photograph flowers in sunshine.......another rule bites the dust!
I do find the black area of the poppy a bit strong and would suggest lightening this.
Having said that, as a representation of the fragility of the poppy this might well work.
The picture was not supposed to represent the fragility of the poppy (it stands up for itself as well as many flowers) but to get in close and exploit (and celebrate) the colour. By choosing this angle and closeness, I was after an effect that was different to the normal poppy shot. That it frightens or confuses is, possibly, a virtue! Although I don't want to overuse Rex's term, the description of "essence" probably comes closest to my objective.