The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
There is a large outdoor sculpture garden at the nearby Paradise Ridge winery andI hadn’t been there is a while. After playing with some abstractions and details on the large pieces, I found this Agave.
Feedback Requested
All comments welcome! But would somebody give me some idea how to frame something like this?? This section is probably about a foot long and deeply buried in the crown of this plant, which is about 6x6 ft. I spent a while looking for compositions yesterday, in bright sun, and had no luck with shadows, then went back today with clouds and this was the best I could do. I love these things but have rarely found what I think I should.
Technical Details
Camera: Canon EOS R5
Lens: RF70-200mm F4 L IS USM
Focal length: 200mm
Shutter speed: 1/10s
Aperture: f/22
ISO: 200
Tripod. Minimal global tweaks in LR, then into PS to remove OOF leaves in the LL and UR. Full frame.
Well, Diane, to be honest I find the upper third is rather swallowed by the bright BG to its right. I’d be tempted to strongly tone down (even clone out) this bright part, followed by a minor darkening of the upper plant itself. But maybe you feel that this would be too intrusive/unnatural. What do you think?
Thanks, @Mike_Friel ! This is where other eyes see things so much better – I was accepting “what was”. I had to resort to AI fill to get rid of the voids, and then added more contrast to the leaf – then realized the more yellow-green of the trees was not a help, so I brought those colors more in line with the Agave. Posted above. Better, but maybe still needs something??
Oh yes! This is so much better; adding contrast to the whole leaf and darkening the BG for overall contrast does the trick to my eye, Diane. Now I really focus on that interesting bud pattern.
Very interesting find - and more impact with your revisions
I’m sure you’ve considered Mono ? Maybe not as the palette is nicely limited so almost mono anyway
But here is a high contrast mono version to add to the discussion
Thanks, @Mike_Friel and @Huw_Thomas ! And thanks for the B/W idea, Huw. I had tried a quick look in LR early on and decided it didn’t do much, but now with the subdued BG it does feel worth trying. Without looking too closely at yours, I tried it in Silver Efex (which feels dumbed down from the old days) and got something I like. For me, a lot of B/W is about silver midtones and this one was reasonably amenable to that. Posted above.
Diane: The revised color version works nicely for me with the B&W a close second. As for composition, I think you just have to get tighter unless there is a particularly complementary BG. Hard to fill the frame with a diagonally oriented relatively narrow subject. >=))>
A bit late to this one, Diane, but I’m thinking along the same lines as Bill here. I think getting down to just a pair or two of the thorns would make a very effective composition if it’s possible to get that close.
This is a wonderful and detailed look at the Agave bud. I like and appreciate that you’ve isolated the patterns and leaf/bud against a complimentary background. (At least after the revised version where you eliminated the bright areas - great job with the revisions!)
I’m gonna follow the theme mentioned by both Bill and Dennis… by getting a little closer. Now I actually only removed the top thorn with a minor crop; this also reduced the upper bg a little. The texture and details of this Agave bud are amazing the closer one looks, so I think a slightly more zoomed in look might help. While at it, in ACR I used the Subject and background masks to tweak the luminosity, slightly adding contrast and couple pts of saturation in the leaf and separately tweaking the bg. Not sure if this is an improvement or not - but for sure you have a wonderful subject to build from.
Hi Diane,
I like both revisions, with a slight edge to the color version. That could just be that I love that color. It’s hard for me to see it go to shades of gray. The bg in the original was distracting, and I’m secretly glad I waited until I could get to the PC to view it. On my phone, I couldn’t figure out how to fix that. The cloning was a good choice.
As for how on earth to compose something like this: It’s so hard. I tried in Palm Springs last year to get closer and really capture the intaglio effect of the places where the leaves etch onto each other before separating. I think the challenge is that the aspect ratio of what it is most interesting in the texture of the plant is kind of antithetical to 35mm photography. The only way to swing it is with a 10:20 pano, and then it feels like it has to go horizontal, which doesn’t seem to honor the agave’s spirit.
Bill, Lon, and Dennis have good suggestions for future shoots (or for crops). While the repeating pattern is captivating, reducing the reps lets you isolate what’s interesting. Another option is finding one that has stripes of darker, lighter green running perpendicular to the incised pattern. I think that is more visible once the bud has opened, and it’s probably a specific type of agave.
Thanks, @Bill_Fach , @Dennis_Plank , @Lon_Overacker and @Marylynne_Diggs ! Yeah – choosing a smaller set of thorns to go for is the key. I was thinking to eliminate the bottom set, but now I’m liking Lon’s crop. So I can do both. I can shoot a tighter composition with my 1000mm macro (or even the 500mm) – it’s perfect for things I can’t get that close to, and a focus stack would be easy as I can’t get it exactly in the plane. There are some other compositions of some of the sculptures that I want to work on further so I’ll go back soon.
