Moroccan Series:Marjorelle Gardens

[David]

Marrakech boasts a number of fine gardens including one, Marjorelle, that was designed and implemented by the late Yves St Laurent. This is a site to be visited during any stay in Marrakech. Typical Moroccan plants, bushes and trees are laid out in well tended beds and are interspersed with highly coloured pots and garden ornaments. The main colours are yellow, blue, and red, with the green foliage making up a "primary" set. Unfortunately, the day I was there the weather was cloudy, resulting in very flat light. It was also very annoyingly busy. Here are three images for perusal and comment.



There was half of a portly person in this shot of the main arbor. Cloning took care of him.



This second image is an abstract of part of a building. The whole place invites this sort of interpretation.

The third image below is an inverted conceit, but I couldn't resist.



Cheers

David

[Dave Humphries]

Hi David,

These are good, very good, the first one genuinely made me exclaim 'WOW' when I first saw it. That's about 2% reaction rate here (and considerably less elsehwere), so well done.

Of course, I'm never short on opinion
If I were there, or I were PPing them, here are a few things I might try;
#1; burn down (not literally!) the tree (and bush below it) in the right foreground, currently its high luminance is fighting the main arbor for the viewer's attention, you did well removing the half person, I can't see where (and please don't tell us)

#2; I can see an abstract here, but I'm not sure about the composition, some of my ideas might not work either, I'd experiment
- another shot with the crumblies (blue paint flakes) swept off
- having the red triangle points touching left and right edges
- having it 'square' to the camera, so the horiz line is well, horizontal
- having that horizontal on a third, hence losing some of the out of focus blank area above on the column itself

#3; a bueatiful reflection, to really mess with people's perception, I might try this:
- possibly crop 10% off the top edge altogether
- maybe lose the palm reflection extreme top right corner
- dull down/blur the reality at the bottom of frame so the relection is sharper
- then reset levels for reflection (main image content) to make it look correct

Food for thought, or something better sniffed and binned?
You choose, I won't be offended either way.

Your pictures do for Marrakech what others do for Nelson NZ, Sri Lanka, UAE, Singapore, or a small, timber framed, town in Germany, i.e. make me want to visit. Well done.

Cheers,

[David]

Dave - Thanks for the kind words and comments. My first "Wow"!. I agree with the idea of cutting down the luminance of the RHS tree and bush in the first photo. I may also look at burning in a bit of dark detail. The second image will remain as it is. I have to say that I was disappointed when I first saw this on a monitor - I didn't like the out-of focus areas or the paint specks. However, the more I thought about it the more I realised that the image is what it is - an abstracted optical effect. Thus, apart from tweaking the colour and a tiny bit of cropping the image is what it is. (BTW, one of my pals who has seen a print of this says it "does his head in" because he can, apparently, see it flicking back and forth between its two optical forms - I have to concentrate to see them.) I agree in general with your thoughts on No.3, but there are so many options that at some point I have to say enough.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

David

[Dave Humphries]

David,

No worries, like I said, that's what I might do, not suggestions for you.
#2 wasn't really for PP at all.
#3 was somewhat tongue in cheek to be honest

So that's one nibble and sniff and bin the rest

Cheers,