Greenhouse Today

[Joe Behar]

I've been struggling with this one for a couple of hours.

Thoughts & comments appreciated

[popnfresh]

I like the shot. The composition and tonality work for me. What did you mean when you said you struggled with it for a couple of hours?

[Joe Behar]

I usually have no trouble in deciding if any of my shots are "keepers". This one confounded me for some reason. I'd have a look and think, yeah, its good, have another look and say, there's something not right. I'd leave it alone for 10 minutes, come back to it and again think its OK...

Maybe I just need to leave it alone for a day and see what I think.

In the meantime, I'll let you fine folks have a go trying to see what's right and wrong with it.

[popnfresh]

I usually have no trouble in deciding if any of my shots are "keepers". This one confounded me for some reason. I'd have a look and think, yeah, its good, have another look and say, there's something not right. I'd leave it alone for 10 minutes, come back to it and again think its OK...

In the meantime, I'll let you fine folks have a go trying to see what's right and wrong with it.

Join the club. It's hard to maintain perspective on your own work because you're so close to it. I change my opinion about my own work all the time. I'm my own harshest critic and I'm often surprised by what others have to say about it.

As for your shot, I see a lot that's right about it and very little that's wrong. Good work.

[PeterAit]

I like this a lot,particularly that you did it in B&W. Lovely tones. I am troubled by the few leaves, extending toward the camera, that are out of focus - they detract from an image that is otherwise nicely sharp and detailed.

[popnfresh]

I'm not sure that the out of focus leaves bother me. I like how they draw the eye to the center of the cactus.

[PeterAit]

For me, they draw my eye to the out of focus areas. But, different strokes and all that!

On a related topic, there's quite a bit of research on this general topic of "drawing the eye" in art works. Using equipment that determines precisely where the subject is looking, it has been determined that pretty much all the theories about certain compositional elements "drawing the eye" in certain ways are just a bunch of hooey.

[popnfresh]

It would be instructive to see two versions of this photo--the one that's already here and another one with everything in focus. For what it's worth, Edward Weston, whose work this reminds me of, would probably have gone for the deep focus approach himself.

[Joe Behar]

Unfortunately, what you see is the only version in existence (I have the raw, but its the only shot I took)

I was walking through a local greenhouse, not really intending to do any "serious" photography. As always, I had my G9 with me and decided to take some snapshots. No tripod, no reflector of any sort and absolutely crappy light to boot. I think I had to shoot at f/3.5 to get a shutter speed that I was reasonably sure of hand holding.

Thank you for the compliment about Edward Weston, you had no way of knowing, but I consider him to be the greatest all around photographer I've ever seen. He was so good at so many genres. I agree, he definitely would have had everything in focus...but then again, he probably would not have shot something like this with P&S camera either

[popnfresh]

Thank you for the compliment about Edward Weston, you had no way of knowing, but I consider him to be the greatest all around photographer I've ever seen. He was so good at so many genres. I agree, he definitely would have had everything in focus...but then again, he probably would not have shot something like this with P&S camera either

I often wonder what the old masters would have produced if today's digital cameras had been available to them.

[Joe Behar]

I often wonder what the old masters would have produced if today's digital cameras had been available to them.

I suspect they would have produced very similar images...

I hate to reopen a big can of whoop-ass, but I think it has a lot more to do with timing than technology.

[DaveCurtis]

Nice shot. Good composition and tonality and technically had to fault.

The only negative I can think of is that it is an image that I have seen many times before.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

… have another look and say, there's something not right...

This type of shot usually works much better when everything is in focus.