Stills

It has a slight colour cast on my monitor.

I'll re-profile and comment later.
 

The title is intriguing: when I first saw the picture I hadn't noted it and initial reactions were along the lines of 'William Morris' designs. Holocene: as in the current geological period? Without having the first idea about the science, this looks rather apt: vegetable matter of some sort in process of being laid down for the next million or two years. The colour is confusing though and I can't work out what the significance of the red is; which takes me back to wallpaper. It's difficult to choose the right words but it seems to me that this is a clever idea and, in terms of isolating the material, very successful. If I take red to signify the red hot core of the earth, then one can make sense of it.
 

Context of viewer: To me this looks medical. The sort of thing that I would bump into at work when trying to find 30 seconds to talk to a doc/prof. An angio screen would be pulsing in the background. Very distracting. Even more so when you can see that it is breathing. Somebody is trying to insert a stent into one of those arteries. I'm glad that this picture doesn't breathe.

Having first seen this image like that I find it very difficult to back out and start again.
 

I've re-calibrated the monitor and the colour cast is still there! :-)

It looks like a deer antler graveyard. It certainly got me going. A photographic equivalent of a Rothko!
 

Fascinating work. There is a lot of depth and movement in the shot. The movement is made by the viewer rolling their eyes round the shot trying to work out exactly what is going on. I'm with the calcium representation here. The colour is spot on for me too.
 

Thanks for all the comments. Calcium galore. The base for this image is a pile of animal bones and antlers that took local people approximately 30 years to collect from surrounding hills near Cody, Wyoming. Lots of experimental layering, filtering, conversions etc in photoshop with the intention of producing something heading towards the darker side of things. Sometimes I wish I took notes but often I don't so I have no idea how I could create this again from another pile of bones.

Holocene - Of or belonging to the geologic time, rock series, or sedimentary deposits of the more recent of the two epochs of the Quaternary Period, beginning at the end of the last Ice Age about 11,000 years ago and characterized by the development of human civilizations.

It's that last bit that made me decide on the title.
 

I am a bit confused by "Lots of experimental layering, filtering, conversions etc in photoshop with the intention of producing something heading towards the darker side of things. Sometimes I wish I took notes but often I don't...."

If you work in adjustment layers nothing is destructive and you can copy the layers on to another image (apparently as I've never done that). If you save in .psd at the end of your work flow it is all preserved for later editing etc. No notes required.
 

Rex, much of the layering was specific to the arrangement of the original image and would not be transferable to others. For instance I think one step was a conversion of a black and white conversion into "infrared". This layer was then virtually destroyed by overuse of curves leaving a lattice of very dark “threads” which represented bone edges. Changing the layer style (overlay method) caused an interesting blending with the layers beneath resulting in the glowing edges depicted above encouraged by light from the original photograph. I didn’t specifically know it was going to happen. Much of it was experimental.

There may well have been an inversion somewhere there along the way.

That technique may or may not work with other images, but it is a general approach that I could try to recreate where suitable if I am remembering correctly.

I have no idea what combination of things produced the velvety texture.

Another problem is that much of my general process involves the flattening of one multiple layer version of the image so that it can be overlayed upon another multi-layered version. The opacity of that layer may then be reduced to allow the bottom image to seep through. Sometimes it’s not possible to keep all layers.

Finally a layer represents a fixed point along the process for that layer. Getting that layer to where it is might have involved all kinds of adjustments, conversions and pre-built PS actions. Notes would still be required.

Fact is, I enjoy the creative process far more than I enjoy noting it all down. It’s often a trail of thought kind of thing where one step opens up a whole new route which I explore or reject. I’m kind of led in one direction or another and often over a period of days, weeks or more. One thing I do reject is anything that gets in the way of the process, which is often note taking.
 

You haven't talked about the red - is that just part of the experimentation or was there a more overt connection to Holocene?
 

John E, yes, the horrors that the rise of human civilisation has visited upon the Earth. The image was an archiological idea, looking back on the rise of humanity from a distant point in the future. What would they say about us once they have dug us and our history up? What have we left behind? Lot's of blood and suffering that's for sure.
 

Thanks Johnjo; but if this is human- related then the red is more likely to signify over-heating.