Thursday, August 23, 2007
shallots drying
Comments:
I got a lot of wow from opening this. The lighting makes the shallots stand out from the soil and the pattern leads me through the image.
I wonder if the B&W was used to help separate the shallots from the soil?
Thanks Rex. The colour version separates the shallots from the soil even better but having looked at it as b/w I was then forced to decide which I liked best. I'm still not sure which appeals most. A rare occasion to use a tripod!
The bones of some alien? My brain knows these are tasty root vegetables, but some part of me wants to see something much more strange here. Perhaps it's the way they are lined up.
Well done.
This is brilliant. What a marvelous sight. I had a similar reaction to Matt's -- I was reminded for some reason of graves or of death, not sure why, but maybe as he suggested, a resemblance to bones.
I'd love to see a color version, too. I wonder if it would lose that somewhat somber feeling.
Christina - the colour version is here:
http://www.johnelliseone.co.uk/gallery/photo.php?photo=954&exhibition=21&u=123|37|...
It is a very different idea.
I spent some time whilst driving away from your house wondering how I could have got a camera sufficiently above these to make a photo looking directly down on them. As it is, even though I wouldn't have shot them like this, I do like the result.
More like some sort of enormous bead curtain than bones, for me.
I wouldn't have guessed that the color version would work equally as well, but it does.
Colin, I see the beaded curtains too. As to shooting something like this from directly above, I've developed a goofy two person technique that works fairly well. Kate and I face each other 3 or 4 feet apart over the object in question. We each lean in until our shoulders touch, making a kind of bipod. I point the camera down, and take a picture.
It looks goofy, but it's a good way to keep my size 14 feet out of the shot.
Bead curtains or bones; I quite like shallots!!
Matt, my wife is less equal in size to me than I imagine Kate to you. This would have needed the tractor loader raised to get the shot from above. Next year.
Colin, you should have asked and I would have got the tractor going (if the battery hadn't been flat).
A wow from me too. Well seen and executed. That little gap front left really starts the emphasis of crowding at the back very well. I'll have to wait until next year to see the from above view but my guess is that the change in perspective would require a little more imagination in the layout pattern of the shallots to start with.
Having been almost the last to comment, I have looked at the color image and I perfer this black and white more, but then I seem to perfer B&W for almost any image:- ) I've been watching too much CSI on the tv, so my first reaction was bones from a killing field. But there is something about the composition chosen that is bothering me and I can not place my finger on it. It seems that my eye continously wanders and there is no "resting" place, thus not a peaceful image for me. But I think it's intreging never the less.
Doug, your comment about the composition is interesting: I think my primary objective was to capture something ephemeral (the rows are already depleted as they depart to the kitchen, and the shallots shrinking as they dry). A shot taken from this position in February would see straw and sheep under cover. So I suppose there is no resting place for the eye.
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I wonder if the B&W was used to help separate the shallots from the soil?
Well done.
I'd love to see a color version, too. I wonder if it would lose that somewhat somber feeling.
http://www.johnelliseone.co.uk/gallery/photo.php?photo=954&exhibition=21&u=123|37|...
It is a very different idea.
More like some sort of enormous bead curtain than bones, for me.
Colin, I see the beaded curtains too. As to shooting something like this from directly above, I've developed a goofy two person technique that works fairly well. Kate and I face each other 3 or 4 feet apart over the object in question. We each lean in until our shoulders touch, making a kind of bipod. I point the camera down, and take a picture.
It looks goofy, but it's a good way to keep my size 14 feet out of the shot.
Matt, my wife is less equal in size to me than I imagine Kate to you. This would have needed the tractor loader raised to get the shot from above. Next year.
Colin, you should have asked and I would have got the tractor going (if the battery hadn't been flat).