Succulent in infrared

We renovated and partly rebuilt our living in autumn 2010 but our living room was not completed yet last summer. We wanted to hang some 2 vertical photos above the sofa and we were thinking about something elegant, perhaps in black and white. Moreover, we wanted the phtos to have some link, perhaps presenting the same subject. Of course that I wanted to use my photos but as no 2 were suitable for this I had to make some new ones.

I was drawn to succulents in our garden (Sempervivum tectorum to be exact) by that time, observing simple, yet elegant, lines of their leaves. One day I finally decided to take some photos of them and started processing them immediately. Have you ever realized how much dirt is on the flower having its leaves only couple centimetres above the ground? I had to clone out around 100 specks on each photo! When photos where “clean” enough I tried different presets in Lightroom and really liked what infrared preset did with photos. A light touch of sepia and it was ready.

0.6 sec. @ 100 mm, f/22, ISO 100

1/4 sec. @ 100 mm, f/16 ISO 100

Even though I was really happy with the result after some time of watching the photos we decided to not hang them because if you observe it for a while you will notice tiny thorns on edges of leaves and it doesn’t evoke pleasant feelings. So after all we chose different solution but I still like these photos and therefore I want to share them here with you.

If you wonder what was the final solution, it couldn’t have been more different. We selected 8 photos from my collection, four in white tones, other four quite colourful and we put them together so that it makes a somewhat compact unit. This is nice example of how initial idea can change radically and still be acceptable.

Let me know if you like these photos with inverted-like feel and enjoy the winter until that time.

Technical information: photos in this post were taken with camera Canon EOS 450 and Canon EF 100mm USM f/2.8 macro lens, mounted on a tripod, under natural conditions, outdoors.

Getting to market, step 1

I announced my goal for this year – getting my photos to a market – in one of my previous posts. I did some small preparations when a very pleasant surprise met me and I’ll write about it in one of my next posts for sure. Let’s focus on the “getting to market goal” now.

My first step on the road ought to be offering my photos in a gallery hosted by the printing company where I make my photos printed. I have already sent my photos there but they haven’t been published, yet. Ok, never mind. They will do it soon, I guess.

Maybe a month ago my wife stuck on a web site called fler.cz. My local visitors will probably know it. It is the biggest local web portal for artists and craftsmen (no mass production) allowing them to offer their products on the portal pages for a commission. Something like a local version of etsy.com. I browsed the shop and I really liked what I found there. Frankly, I like the stuff there more and more Moreover, I looked through a gallery of photographers offering their photos there and I found out that such a type of photography as I’m doing is not present there so my work will “fill the gap” in their portfolio. And “fler” if it comes from “fleur” in French means a blossom! What a match

~ Seedy Mum ~
4 sec. @ 100 mm, f/10, ISO 100

It took me some time before I finally decided to put my work on display and so from now on you can see and buy my first 15 photos there. There is a LOT of various photos on the server so I’m really wondering if my works will interest someone to buy it. Time will tell. I know that the key is to have a bigger offer than just 15 images and I plan to update it regularly. I’ll definitelly do a recap after some time and I’m really looking foward to it.

Until then, enjoy the spring in full bloom!

Technical information: all photographies in this post were taken with Canon EOS 450D camera and Canon EF 100mm USM macro lens mounted to a tripod, in natural conditions, indoors.

Ful or less?

I mean colours. And a photo. Colourful or colourless? You probably know this. Sometimes when I am processing a photo I end up with satisfying result but then I start to think “how it would look like when applying this?” This is exactly the case of photos in this post. I took this photo some weeks ago along the photos presented in previous post but it took me some time to get down to the processing. The main reason was that I had 5 images with different plane of focus which I planned to merge into a stack to get bigger depth of field. I knew that it will require more time than routine post-processing which usually takes under half an hour. When I had the stacked image I knew that I want to make a painting from it. Well, a photograph which look like painted. I knew all the tools that I need (Photoshop, Alien Skin Snap Art 2) and also the process.  I wanted the result to look like this.

~ Intertwined (Oil on canvas) ~
1/15 – 1/4 sec. @ 100 mm, f/4 – f/8, ISO 100

When I have a photo in Lightroom for usual processing I try application presets sometimes, just to see if something  fits the photo. I did it also this time and sepia preset did something that I really liked. I did only small tweaks to default settings and the result suddenly matches my “Flora in High-Key” series. And it can’t differ much more from the photo above.

~ FHK #10 – Intertwined ~
1/15 – 1/4 sec. @ 100 mm, f/4 – f/8, ISO 100

I like both of them and it leads me to thoughts about suitability of different styles for different occasions. While colourful photo easily drags someone’s attention, as human eye is very sensitive to colours, the BW or toned photo must attract with something else because the main attraction – colours – are removed. Colourful photo looks very well on monitor and it can drag viewer’s attention easily even in thumbnail. Once he is trapped and viewing full size version he can enjoy all the details and additional processing. In case of the second photo it might look a bit mundane and “tasteless” at first sight. Viewer who is not enjoying this kind of photography will very probably move his eyes to something else soon.

Very often I think about my photographs as accessories to a living. Something to hang on a wall to make the place nicer or to give it some mood. If I think about the first, colourful, photo it’s not easy to find a place in our house where I would hang it. Or in any other house. I work with colours as with mood/atmosphere evokers and thus every colourful photo needs to be carefully chosen to work with the rest of the room or to create a contrast. Colour photos are good for places where energy flows. They can make living comfortable if well chosen or discomfortable or even irritating in opposite case.

The high-key photos, black and white photos, toned photos and such don’t give so much energy. They are not evoking strong emotions. They can evoke a sense of peace and relax, elegance and even glamour if well accompanied by other accessories in the room. For example we have this kind of photos in our bedroom. With earthy brown colour tones and simple modern furniture it creates fantastic atmosphere where it is pleasure to relax.

That’s how I see and understand “colourful” and “colourless” photos. How do you see it? How do you perceive it?

 

Enjoy the spring while thinking about it

Technical note: all photos in this post were taken with Canon EOS 450D camera and Canon EF 100mm USM macro lens mounted to a tripod, under natural conditions, indoors.

Negative Space in Flower/Macro Photography *Updated*

If you ever heard about Negative space you already know what I want to write about. If you never heart about it but you already have some experience with photography, I am pretty sure you know what Negative space is but you only don’t know it is called so.

Let’s begin with commonly used definition:

“Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image”, says Wikipedia.

It is simple as this. The negative space is everything in the frame beside the main subject(s) which usually means that negative space is a background. You know how important the “right” composition is and that different compositions can significantly influence viewers perception of the photo. I will not write here how to compose a subject in an image, how to use a background to make the main subject pops up, how to mix various colours in the image aso.

I want to focus on something that I realized only recently and that is the use of negative space in flower and macro photography. In flower and macro photography you usually compose the photographed scene in 2 different ways:

1. the main subject is wholly in the image,
2. the main subject is only partially in the image.

Now I would like to present the role of negative space in both types of composition and how it influences viewers perception. Let’s look on the following photo:

~ 1/320 sec. @ 100 mm, f/4, ISO 100 ~

The flower on this photo is a Dwarf Tulip (Tulipa tarda), a tiny tulip variety that blooms in early spring in patches of 10+ bright white and yellow blossoms with a diameter around 2 centimetres. The flower blooms fully open only in direct sunlight and closes quickly in shadow thus I had to take the photo around noon and therefore the strong light in the centre of the flower. There were also other blossoms quite near to this one and other flowers resulting in a messy background so I opted to mount a close up filter to my macro lens for super shallow depth of field. Now the colours of the background were not pleasing at all so I yet converted the photo to BW and applied sepia toning and darkened the corners, leaving only the blossom and some nice diagonal blurred lines behind it. Note that this photo is not finished because it was intended only for use in this post; in finished photo the distracting petals entering the photo at the bottom were removed in post processing.

Now it is a great photo for illustrating what is negative space. It is everything around the main flower. The main subject is also called positive space. I could be happy with the photo if I removed those petals near the bottom – it was composed according to the rules of thirds and it looks good, in my opinion. After watching it for a while I realized that it doesn’t evoke the feelings I would like to be evoked. Even though I used macro lens with additional close up optics and even though the front lens of the macro lens was only couple of centimetres from the blossom, it still looks like a small flower and that’s exactly what negative space does in this case! Surrounding whole main subject it makes it look small in whole composition even though it would be printed on huge canvas. My eyes are dragged to the flower which is right but then they leave it and start wandering around the image searching for some other interesting subject and finally, finding nothing else, coming back to the flower. I, as a viewer, find it distracting.

So, what can I do with it? Crop it to eliminate the negative space!

If cropping I prefer either original 2:3 format or square format. I don’t like other aspect ratios much. So after a couple of tries of different crops here is one which I like. It is much better now, don’t you think? My eyes enter the photo in top left corner, follows the petals directly to the centre where they circle around the sharpest anther, sometimes leaving the central part, following the top petals right rim and coming back following its left rim and circling around the centre again. Hmm, I like it! After watching it for a while I got that feeling again. There is still too much background which is too dark and the flower still looks a bit small. There is still a bit more negative space than positive space and that’s what makes the difference.

Last try, crop it a bit more:

The ratio between negative and positive space is now near to 50% and it proves itself. My eyes go the same way as in previous case but now don’t have any reason nor intention to leave the flower  to wander above the rest of the image. The flower is all I see and watch and that is what I wanted. I wanted to show the flower to the viewer and there are no doubts that the flower is what this photo is about. Yes, there is that cropped left petal but it is not distracting in my opinion. I think that it creates a certain tension in the photo as it drags my attention and leads my eyes to the centre of the flower again. This is the result I am happy with and this is what helped me to understand the negative and positive space and how the amount of each and ratio between them can influence viewers perception of the photo and what is in it.

It does not mean that finding a balance between negative and positive spaces is the target. The target is to realize that there is something such as negative and positive space and to use it according to your vision. And I believe that even though I tried to explain it on example of flower and macro photography, it is fully applicable in every kind of photography.

*Update*

After your comments here and on NSN forum where I post my photos I decided for a better crop on 3rd image:

Enjoy the early summer and I’ll be happy for your comments!

Technical information: the photo was taken with the Canon EOS 450D camera, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM macro lens and HOYA close up +4 filter under natural conditions with a help of tripod (the blossoms are only couple of cm above the ground so it was nice test for my tripod).

One scene, many possibilities

During my one year experience of photographing flowers I have found out that it is quite easy to take more photos of one scene with different atmosphere, mood and overall feel. This is truth at least for studio shooting. Sometimes it is possible even with a single subject as on following photos.

~ Flamenco Gerbera ~
0.6 sec. @ 100mm, f/20, ISO 100

1.3 sec. @ 100 mm, f/20, ISO 100

Even from a quick glance you can see that the overall feel of each photo is radically different and you can also see that it is the same photo. Well, not exactly – in the first photo I used black background while in the second one I opted for white background. But beside this it is the same photo. The lighting was the same in both cases – the natural sunshine of a medium intensity sometimes after midday. I was afraid that the reds will be overexposed in those areas where the rays of light fell on the petals but I was happy  when it proved to be a negative presumption after looking at histogram for red colour.

These  two photos had had completely different feel even before discolouration of the second one. Such an affect only by changing background. Now realize that you can change also lighting, composition, depth of field, focal length, shutter speed etc. There is so much possibilities.

When I have a shooting session with a flower I usually try to find all possibilities of what might end up as a good shot. Sometimes I visualize the photo and try to achieve it. Sometimes I achieve it sometimes I don’t. Anyway, I end up with photos which may be great even though I didn’t visualize them and haven’t thought about them before shooting.

What I’m trying to say by all this is that from my experience I recommend to not focus only on visualizing the photo, if you visualize it in advance at all, but try to use the scene as much as possible. Use your creativity and I am sure that you will end up with some very interesting and maybe even surprising images.

Enjoy the spring and do not forget to play with a scene!