I sympathise if you don’t see this as eye candy. Well, kind of. I’m sharing these pictures for HeyJude’s Textures challenge, so if you don’t like rusty old cars, you can blame her.
Abandoned, Rusty, Eye Candy
Vertical Form (St Ives) By Barbara Hepworth With Reflections
I do like this picture, although it has as many accidental elements as purposeful ones: layers, patterns, textural contrasts and red herrings.
Although I lined the sculpture up reasonably well with the r/h edge of the frame, the reflections make it look all catawampus. That doesn’t just allow me to use the word my sweetheart taught me (we would say ‘skew whiff’) but it also makes the picture seem more abstract. That seems fitting.
I tried cropping closer, but prefer the picture with the distractions in. They have an unsettling effect and they provide context for a bronze sculpture that has St Ives in its name.
I suspect the reflections of the houses humanise the bronze more than if the clean lines of a gallery were behind it. The sculpture seems to gaze out, watchfully or wistfully.
The colour combination is muted – natural stone, grey, plus a languid take on the traditional blue and white that symbolises Cornwall – helping the gleaming sculpture hold its own visually in the gallimaufry. Continue reading “Vertical Form (St Ives) By Barbara Hepworth With Reflections”
Sesame Street Toys
HeyJude is asking to see pattern used as a background in this week’s 2020 Photo Challenge. She adds:
Don’t have your subject too large in the frame or it will detract from the pattern. And consider whether the patterned background adds or takes away the impact of the subject.
The pattern reflects the zaniness of the characters. It’s bright and bold, but could we imagine Sesame Street any other way? Continue reading “Sesame Street Toys”
Assessing The Beauty Of Hellebore Hybrids
A plant breeder has the unenviable task of deciding which hybrids to keep and which to discard. The nearest a photographer comes to that experience is when we are in a garden exploring a collection of hybrid plants, deciding which forms to capture.
The nodding habit of most hellebore hybrids forces us to bend and balance as we make our deliberations, lifting each flower head and looking inside. As a general rule, the more regular a pattern, the more photogenic the flower if we are aiming for a fresh look rather than artistic decay, but there are exceptions. Continue reading “Assessing The Beauty Of Hellebore Hybrids”
Pink Climbing Rose: An Exercise
HeyJude is running a photo challenge during 2020 on her Travel Words blog designed to get us thinking about the techniques of taking pictures. You can find out the details and monthly topics here. January’s topic is Composition and Framing. These crops are inspired by some of Jude’s instructions – I’ve added them in italics, so you know the intention.
Clearly identify your subject. Not as easy as it might seem. The rose is my main interest, but the setting is worthy of attention too (around an oval opening on the curved outside fence of Diarmuid Gavin’s garden at RHS Harlow Carr), so I was slightly torn, wanting to give a glimpse of the inside.
It was an overcast summer evening. The curve of the wall and habit of the rose meant shooting into the light, creating a bright glare. The original picture has a few more inches of haze at the top, and bright light always draws the eye away from the subject. I’ve removed some of it with the effect that the crop is neither landscape, portrait or square. I like to keep the traditional proportions if I can, but throwing aside the rules and cropping any way the subject demands is often the difference between a poor picture and a decent one.
Move in closer to your subject, but not too close. While the flowers in the first picture were blobs, more of their character comes out here. Continue reading “Pink Climbing Rose: An Exercise”
January Squares: Mixed Lights
I’m sharing a few days’ January Squares, with twin themes: places where we can eat and/or drink; each picture to represent a word ending in light.
The first could be daylight or windowlight (apparently that’s a word). I was interested in the colours – how the light seems to leach them out from the modern stained glass and paint them on the sills and surfaces, and the way the barstools carry them through into the room. The hanging lights have coloured wires too or appear to have through a trick of the light. Continue reading “January Squares: Mixed Lights”
Wordless Wednesday: Layers
