We improve wth practice

[pecunium]

Last week I commented that I'd not had much luck taking photos of some kinds of flowers (specfically Birds of Paradise/Strelitzia (which happens to be pollenated by birds, which is why they have such a thick, and gooey, nectar, but I digress).

So I've done a bit more work on them (incorporating some of the techniques suggested). I also took a stab at Statice/Limonum (which I think of as "crepe flowers" because of how the wrinkled petals make me think of crepe paper, even though they are much stiffer).

I've not had much luck with them either, because they are so busy, and the self-same purity of color which draws the eye, seems bland when I try to take a picture.

Hard at Work


I don't know if I'd have tried this without the bee. The pattern of the blossoms (and the interesting nature of them, papery white-bits which are fleeting, and the purple which seems to last forever), is interesting, but I can't seem to make it arresting.


Ghost


This one is interesting because it was affected by the weather. The exposure was for 1/125th That's usually fine for flowers. The day, however, was windy, and while the shutter was open the flower bobbed. If you look at it closely you can just see it above the projection. It's also got some Georgia O'Keefe like aspects.


Headress


This one is a better treatment of a subject I've really struggled with; shooting these blooms in close up. They are fascinating, but I've been missing some essential aspect of them, and they come out either busy, or dull.

Headress B&W


A bit of variation, so the shape , and texture, can be more evident than the colors.

There are also a number of photos of spiders, and a few more flowers, of a sort I've never had trouble getting decent shots of.

Comments

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

All flowers are tough- ones like Bird of Paradise which are full of impact in person are often hard to translate to photo because they don't fill space so much as they bracket it, and because the petals reflect and transmit light in unexpected ways. They're also often smaller, narrower, more flawed than one sees without the camera.

Ad to that the plethora of bad pretty-pretty flower photos everyone has seen in their lives and breaking through and showing something new and interesting is tough.

Julia, I like the close-up of the BoP a lot, bot color and B&W; I like them next most to the crab photo you put up earlier, which is dynamite.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

This, I suppose, is where, having an eye comes into play. Because there are a lot (I am tempted to say most, but that's probably wrong) of flowers (from the ubiquitous roses and lilies, to the more esoteric) which I seem to have no problem with (problem being defined as I am satisfied with the result).

It may be a sense of scale... I like to get inside them, but I have a number which are from the more conventional distance.

Photography is hard, might be the better idea, and each of us has different aspects with which we struggle.

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

Right now I'm struggling with the essential relearning of technique that getting a new camera entails; I finally had to revert to the way I did it the first time: shooting a few dozen exposures of one set of subjects, and then working them to final form, every day, or as close to every day as I can get. Of course, in 1974. I was also bulk-loading Tri-X and developing all my negatives, making contact prints, work prints, and final prints through a filed-out negative holder, and having tutorials with two photography teachers. I don't miss the darkroom and chemical process stuff, but I do miss having my work torn to bits by master photographers.

The reason I say flowers are hard, though, is that I am yet to get a photo of deer tongue (Erythronium oregonum) that I'm really satisfied with, and I started that process the year I started using a 35mm camera.

Julia, it doesn't help that getting down next to small stuff was easier thirty-five years ago, as was focussing

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I actually do miss the darkroom (though I was never a fan of filed out holders). I miss the slow rise of the image from nothingness, and the sense of control that dodging, burning, pre-flashing, etc. gave.

Digital is faster, but some of the magic isn't there.

I hear you on the "I still can't get that one". I've been working on the Birds of Paradise since, oh about 1987.

[soul-diaspora.livejournal.com]

Love "Hard at Work"--the texture, color and lighting are just beautiful. Like living tinsel.

[robertainnc.livejournal.com]

I am particularly partial to your photographs of birds of paradise, I must say. Absolutely stunning.