Milkweed

[DanK]

I decided to go back to something I photographed years ago: milkweed pods. 'Tis the season, so I went out and collected a few. Here are two of the new ones.

Technical details: I shot these with my new R6 Mark II, using its focus bracketing feature. One of the options is to shoot a bunch of raw photos and leave them without a composite, which is what I did. This is not only easier; it allowed me not to move while photos were being taken, which in turn lessened movement of the filaments. It also made critical focusing irrelevant: I focused manually a bit in front of the closest point, set the camera to do a lot of photos to make sure I had the entire range I needed, and threw out the out of focus ones, front and back, in a few seconds in Lightroom. Lighting was simple: two halogens in hair lights, one with a silver umbrella and the other direct but with heavy diffusion. Both were stacked in Zerene using DMap and processed almost entirely in Photoshop.

One technique I used on one of them is something I posted here recently. On the shorter one, I had not turned down the direct light enough, and there were some hot spots that weren't clipped but were bad enough that they would have started turning gray if I burned enough. So instead, I made a duplicate layer, set it to multiply, attached a black mask, and painted on where it needed burning.

I used three techniques to bring out detail: a bit of texture in Lightroom before going to Photoshop, local contrast via USM in Photoshop, and sharpening with a high pass filter set to a fairly large radius (4+).

Comments welcome, of course. These were fairy quick edits, so I'm sure there is much that could be improved.

[Geoff F]

Looks good to me. You have captured the fine details and avoided any over exposure areas.

[pschlute]

Quite beautiful

[Chataignier]

I like those a lot, terrific detail in the fine hairs.

[Round Tuit]

Not surprisingly, both are outstanding. I like the framing of the second one better. The filaments touching the edges of the frame seem to anchor the milkweed.

[DanK]

Thanks for the comments.

I too like the second one better. Apart from the fact that it's technically better, I like the framing better. Because of the angle, it looks like it was taken with a wide-angle lens, emphasizing the close filaments, even though it was shot at 100 mm. Concerning the edges: from time to time, I go to the impressionist collection at the Clark Art Institute, partly to see how the best of them composed their paintings. One of the things that struck me, e.g., in some paintings by Renoir, is that some of them didn't follow the photo-club rule not to cut important parts of the image. For example, Renoir's famous painting of peonies crops them on two edges. So I decided to be a little freer in trying this out.

This leaves me with an odd aspect ratio, 1.38:1, so if I frame it, which my wife wants me to do, I'll have to do a custom frame.

[Manfred M]

Two very nicely done images and I agree with you that the second one is the stronger of the two.

In terms of breaking the rules, Renoir and the other famous artists have something referred to as the "halo effect". Nicely said, if they did it, it must be good. If one forgets who they were, we can sometimes see that they made mistakes too.

That being said, breaking rules is very important in one's development and in this case it works. I suspect the reason is that the areas where you have cut the border are just the silky tufts, so that is not all that distracting.

[DanK]

Manfred,

I certainly agree about the halo effect. It's one reason why so much fine art photography is in my view dreck. And while of course great artists make mistakes, I don't think Renoir's Peonies is in that category.

My mother, who at one point was a professional musician, made a relevant comment when I was young and said something positive about someone who broke the rules. I don't recall what genre of music or what artist I was referring to. Her response was something like "you need to understand the rules to break them successfully."

All that aside, I find that the focus (no pun intended) on rules is one of the factors that limits a lot of high-quality amateur and semi-pro photography. For example, take the "rule" of thirds. The principle isn't the fraction; it's visual balance. In that same exhibit, there are superb paintings that accomplishes what the rule of thirds is supposed to accomplish with substantially different fractions, e.g., 1/4 to 3/4.

In this particular case, I did think about what the image would look like if I shrank it to allow negative space all around and not cut the filaments. My conclusion was that this was better. But of course it's a matter of taste.

[Manfred M]

I totally agree, Dan. So do a few photographers we may have heard of...

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” - Ansel Adams



Three from Edward Weston:

“Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk”

“Rules of composition are deduced from the work of strong masters and used by weak imitators to produce… nothing.”

“When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial clichés.”



“Photography has no rules, it is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved.” - Bill Brandt



“Rules are foolish, arbitrary, mindless things that raise you quickly to a level of acceptable mediocrity, then prevent you from progressing further.” - Bruce Barnbaum in his highly regarded book, The Art of Photography

[DanK]

Indeed. By chance, I stumbled on the Adams quote again just a few days ago.

The Barnbaum quote, which I hadn't seen before, precisely (if uncharitably) expresses how I think of this. For novices, it's can be very helpful to learn about the "rule" of thirds, but unless one makes the transition from thinking of it as a "rule" to thinking about it as a "useful guideline and starting point," one gets stuck.

In this particular case, I'm wary of chopping things off at the edge, but when it works, it works.

[mikemyers]

A friend sent me here to read this discussion. Fascinating, and two awesome images.

I don't understand how this was done, but I prefer the first image - it is "simpler", or maybe I should write "condensed".

Looks like a huge amount work, along with the composition and lighting.

The first image is "simpler", my eye knows right where to go, and why, and it all ties together so nicely.

Any scale I may have built into my brain for comparing or evaluating images is overwhelmed.

I only have one question - was this image what you were "aiming for", or did it just come together for you?

[DanK]

Mike,

A little of both. I don't have anything specific in mind when I collect them; I just look for some that are interesting. However, when I get them home, I put the most interesting up using a wimberley plamp and play with positions to see if I can find something I like. If I find a composition I like, I play with lighting, which is why I use continuous lights.

It's complex, but once you get the hang of it, it's not too hard. You have to learn stacking.

[Manfred M]

Indeed. By chance, I stumbled on the Adams quote again just a few days ago.

The Barnbaum quote, which I hadn't seen before, precisely (if uncharitably) expresses how I think of this. For novices, it's can be very helpful to learn about the "rule" of thirds, but unless one makes the transition from thinking of it as a "rule" to thinking about it as a "useful guideline and starting point," one gets stuck.

In this particular case, I'm wary of chopping things off at the edge, but when it works, it works.

I agree Dan.

The reasons I am up on the quotes is that I am giving a couple of talks on "What makes a strong image" at one of my photo clubs. I delivered the first talk about three weeks ago and the second one is on Thursday. Those quotes (and a few others) are part of the talk.

When it comes to the composition component, I am essentially doing exactly what you have written. Novice to intermediate photographers need to use the "Rules" as a guide to learn how to compose, but once the photographer is quite advanced, the rules need to be ignored and the image viewed as a whole.