The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is Prickly Shield Fern, a NZ native fern, that grows mostly in scrub and tussock land where it often forms dense carpets just tall enough to shred ankles and legs when you walk through it.
In this image there is a mixture of living and dead fronds that I thought would look best in monochrome rather than as a mixture of greens and browns.
Specific Feedback
All comments and suggestions for improvement are very welcolme.
I was attracted to this small composition because the dead and dying fronds appeared to be ‘hugging’ the decaying tree branches as though to share in their misery. After trying several monochrome tints, I settled on this silver toning as it seems to reflect the feeling that I had at the time I photographed the scene, and it separates the tones of the living and dead/dying fern fronds (i.e. to me it just seemed to work OK!).
Technical Details
ISO 400, 1/125s, f11
50mm on an old Nikon D300 (one of my favourite old cameras).
Fascinating! The complex curves make this very interesting – I love the shapes leaves can take as they die. Easy to want to impart some meaning to it. I also love the sophisticated tone you have chosen.
My only thought, and not a criticism but just a wonder if – is it possible to get more tonal separation between the browns and greens? Don’t know if that would be good, as I also have the feeling that you wouldn’t want to increase contrast any more, with all the detail here.
The textures of the dead log catch my eye. The one frond that hugs the log is a captivating point of interest. I find myself wondering what this looks like in color. I have to imagine which are the living and which are the dead fronds. I get confused by all the detail and textures. I tried a tight crop of just the top part of the log , but it did not make it easier for me to understand the idea of the dead fronds. Phil, I like what you want to convey and need more clues to get it.
I love this, Phil. the textures are just awesome. I don’t think it would work at all in color because it’s just all about the forms and textures. I do like the tone you chose to use because it fits the scene a bit better than straight black and white would. The only suggestion I could think of is that there are a couple of the brighter fronds heading toward the upper left corner that are coming perilously close to leading the eye out of the frame. This is the kind of image I could look at for a long time.
Thanks Diane. I did try a better separation of the greens and browns but found that it made the image a bit messy and complicated, and also too contrasty as you note, with too many tones amongst the fronds. The lighter toned fronds in the image are dead and bleached in the sun whereas the darker fronds are the mixture of greens and browns. I’ve included the original image (at about the same crop) below so that you can see what I mean.
It is quite a small file after cropping the original that was only 12 Mp to start with.
Thanks for your comments Dennis. Yes, it is all about textures and shapes, hence the conversion away from colour. A while ago I mostly only used black and white for my photography, firstly film that I processed myself, and then all black and white conversions using C1. Nowadays it is so easy to apply various tones to see what works best during a colour conversion to monochrome. I usually use either Silver Efex or one of my PS recipes for this.
Thanks for pointing out that frond near the ULC, I somehow didn’t pay much attention to that. However if I lift the top crop a bit, it introduces another small part of the main log that then looks rather strange and too difficult (for me anyway) to deal with. Cheers.
Hi Barbara. Thanks for your comments. I’ve included the colour version with about the same crop below so that you can see which are the living (green and also part brown) fronds and the dead and bleached (whitish) fronds. As noted in my reply to Dennis, this image to me is about textures and shapes, and colours just got in the way of that, hence a simplification with a silver/B&W conversion. Sorry, I should have noted that in my description of the image when I posted it. Cheers.
This is nicely seen and your treatment really brings out the feeling of decay and melancholy. B&W was the way to go. I, too, am captivated by that fern wrapping around the log, and I thought perhaps that could be accentuated by darkening just the logs. I tried it out, but my version is not uploading for some reason. I can try later if you want to see it.
Thanks Bonnie. Yes, I’m keen to see your interpretation of this one. I find it really useful to see my images as others might process them. No need to go to great lengths if it won’t upload though. Cheers.
OK - it uploaded today. Here you go. If you wanted a bit more drama, you could bring down the midtones and darks even more, leaving the lightest bits untouched. I tried that, but didn’t want to stray too far from your original intent.
