Lovely dead crap

Image Critiques
1

Lovely dead crap.jpg
Lovely dead crap.jpg2048×1190 175 KB

Critique Style Requested: In-depth

The photographer has shared comprehensive information about their intent and creative vision for this image. Please examine the details and offer feedback on how they can most effectively realize their vision.

Self Critique

I think the mood, the color palette, and the unusual subject choice are successful. What could be improved? The plant is messy, with branches sticking out at the top, but that’s reality, so I’m not sure what I could have done. I’m also not sure about the background. Should I have given a sense of more dead plants in the back or just completely blurred the background?

Creative direction

I was aiming to convey the idea that there is beauty even in the dead-looking plants in the winter, plants that I would ordinarily walk by without a second thought.

Specific Feedback

I’d like to continue to take more pictures like this to make winters more bearable for myself and to have something to look forward to when the next winter comes around. Any suggestions on this line of photography? Anything I can do to improve my approach (with the Lensbaby or other lenses) as I take more pictures of wintry plants like this?

Technical Details

Lensbaby Velvet 56 mm.
Aperture somewhere around f/1.6 to 4.
ISO 125
Shutter speed 1/2000 sec

Description

This is another new image with my brand-new Lensbaby. I live in Minnesota and, sadly, I don’t like winter. Even if you disregard the cold and the icy roads, the gloomy days and the dead-looking nature outside just make me feel depressed. But tabletop photography is just not the same as photographing real nature. So going out and photographing the dead stuff outside with the Lensbaby was a revelation to me. The softness made these plants and the overcast day look ethereal! I suddenly saw that it was possible to see beauty in nature even in the depths of winter.

2

Excellent work, Canan. I think you nailed the lensbaby trick on this one. The subject is in superb focus with everything else having that dreamy look. The echo on the left works just fine though there’s a slightly brighter orangish patch in it that I would probably subdue with a little low opacity cloning from the background. The stem continuing up does bug me a little bit. Perhaps throw a pair of pruning shears in your this kind of thing-you’re certainly not going to hurt a dead plant :grin:

3

I think you are on to something, Canan, to help you through the winter months. There is just beauty all around us in nature, if we would look for it. I think @Dennis_Plank as added some good suggestions. I can’t think of anything else.

4

Thanks for your suggestions, Dennis. Good point about that orange patch. And yes, I might take some virtual pruning shears to the top :slight_smile:

5

Thanks, Shirley. So true about finding beauty if we look for it, although it sure is harder to look for it on icy pavements. Nevertheless, I’ll continue using photography to survive these winter months.

1 Like
6

I don’t recommend icy pavements. I shattered my left wrist while walking on some about 11 years ago.