Another image from the workshop a few weeks ago held in Härjedalen, Sweden. This Dwarf birch was sticking out over a small pond filled with a natural foam pattern.
In post-processing, I deliberately emphasized the blackness of the water surface to get a graphical pattern.
Any comments are welcome!
1/20, f/11, ISO 200, 40-150 mm lens at 150 mm (300 mm equiv.), Olympus camera OM-D E-M1X
Very cool with the contrasts, Ola. I like this. Well done.
Ola,
Very cool indeed! At first before reading anything I was thinking, I’ve never seen birch bark with this kind of pattern. ok, look’s like he went extreme on the contrast, but the patterns don’t look like birch. Oh, but then I read and discover it’s foam in the water and now makes perfect sense! whew!
What a great find and even better capture! I think despite my comment above… you did well to make the darks in the water go black. I also think that placing anything in front of those patterns would be a difficult task since I’m not sure there would be anything that could hold it’s own over the b&w patterns. That is of course unless you place a branch of RED leaves over the top! I think that is the saving grace for this image is how those red-orange autumn leaves can stand out - or stand above the graphic nature of the background.
Brilliant!
Hi Ola,
I Love this one.
I would love to see a “less extreme” processing version…
Interesting and unique image Ola. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.
It looks to me like a minimalist branch overlayed on a very interesting abstract -I find myself separating the two as I study this and then viewing it as a whole - again and again. It works well, and is fascinating. But I would love to see the foam on its own as an alternative. If I had to buy one, I think I’d go for the second one.
Ola… Wow this is so cool! I love how the designs provide contrast as well as the direction of lines, whites and blacks, and colors of red leaf pop all provide contrast too! That’s so wild. This screams of seasons colliding with one another. If I could make one suggestion on the editing side to bring attention more to the stem and leaves, use a vignette to draw attention there. Or you could use a radial filter for a more direct approach. Amazing shot!
This is fantastic. I like how it’s about the shapes and patters and contrast and not so much about the literal natural elements.
@Lon_Overacker, @Eva_McDermott, @DeanRoyer, @David_Johnston, @Mike_Friel, @joaoquintela and @David_Bostock thanks for your kind comments and advice.
I will post one at the end of the week.
I am at the moment working with some images with foam only. If anyone is good enough I will post it later this year.
I really like this scene, Ola. I’m with @Lon_Overacker that my eye wants to make the background birch bark instead of foam, and I struggle for just a second making that mental switch. I think that the typical viewer would, like me, need that explanation to help appreciate the full effect of the image.
