Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: Justan on May 04, 2012, 11:45:39 am

Title: Flowers and farms
Post by: Justan on May 04, 2012, 11:45:39 am
A couple of weeks back the Mt. Vernon area held their annual flower festival, an amazing display of flowers and cultivation skills.

(http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/FarmAndDaffodils1.jpg)

Link to larger image (http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/FarmAndDaffodils1.jpg)

(http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/FarmAndDaffodils2.jpg)

Link to larger image (http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/FarmAndDaffodils2.jpg)
 
(http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/PinkTulips-1.jpg)

Link to larger image (http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/PinkTulips-1.jpg)

(http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/Multi-Colored-Tulips-1.jpg)

Link to larger image (http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/Multi-Colored-Tulips-1.jpg)

(http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/1-flower_Panorama1.jpg)

Link to larger image (http://justan-elk.com/Images/Landscapes/1-flower_Panorama1.jpg)

Title: Re: Flowes and farms
Post by: Justan on May 08, 2012, 10:48:15 am
Isaac,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

> Apart from acknowledging the large area of yellow, I didn't seem to look at that mass of daffodils - so FarmAndDaffodils2 was more interesting than FarmAndDaffodils1 because there's more distinct stuff along that far boundary with the daffodils.

I was hoping to get feedback on which composition was better received. Other than the viewpoint, the other distinctive feature between the 2 is that in one image the flowers were sharpened substantially while the other added blur.

> Multi-Colored-Tulips-1 seems to work better from the mid-ground into the distance, the foreground yellow blooms seem to blur together.

Wish I had a big stopper ND filter for this one. Since I didn’t I went for the highest f stop and slowest shutter I could get in daylight, and the resulting mush was aided by a tad of PP blur.

For reasons unobvious to me, many women love the pink tulips composition and the early bloomer (1-flower-panorama) is a close second, though it doesn’t have a strong as a gender based response as does pink tulips.
Title: Re: Flowes and farms
Post by: Rob C on May 08, 2012, 12:44:57 pm
Justan

Don't usually drop into this section, but I do like your last shot very much; apart from a pleasing composition/crop, nice to see somebody saying the hell with infinite depth of field at last! Makes it so much stronger and to the point.

Rob C

Title: Re: Flowes and farms
Post by: Justan on May 09, 2012, 11:14:00 am
Justan

Don't usually drop into this section, but I do like your last shot very much; apart from a pleasing composition/crop, nice to see somebody saying the hell with infinite depth of field at last! Makes it so much stronger and to the point.

Rob C



Thanks!
Title: Re: Flowers and farms
Post by: Justan on May 09, 2012, 11:24:59 am
> Now I look for that, I can easily see that difference. afaict I barely glance at the mass of daffodils - I skip right across that field and start examining what isn't a field of daffodils.

It’s interesting to me how people see these. In one case someone said that they thought the buildings were a distraction and focused on the flowers & sky.

Also, a lot of what creates impact for these is scale. When reduced enough to be tolerable for web based viewing, they are at a small fraction, maybe 1/10th of the intended size. I think that drastically alters how people see the works.

> I can see that composition has a likeable swathe of pink and blue, and without the presence of other details like farm buildings I guess it's easier to put our own feelings into the picture - in that sense it's the more open ended picture.

Getting the viewer to project something of themself into the image is the grandest goal of all. Not that I have any knowledge of the skills to achieve this goal, but where in many cases a simple subject is what people tend to like, in this case it is the variations of a theme that serves the goal.

> And, on reflection, being a more open ended picture is quite a strength - perhaps a strength I don't appreciate enough ;-)

> (Perhaps that's also the case with the early bloomer - although the bloom seems small and far away.)

Very thoughtful comments. Thanks!