I posted an image last week as a comment focusing on a photo style - One Shoot & Done. The image is composed and exposed in the camera, with no post-processing. I didn’t suggest that it’s a workflow we all should follow, but in B&W film days, it was a style encouraged by - shall we say, purists.
The image I used as an example is below—a bin with dead-headed flowers and trimmings at a botanical garden.
The new image is created from that original image, but this time with extensive post-processing.
My intention is not to suggest any right or wrong ways of approaching photography but to spur thought or discussion about how we each follow our own style and the results of our passion for the perfect image.
All comments are welcome.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: Yes
The original image was cropped, a section selected, and that section reversed both vertically and horizontally and the layers linked.
Look at the original un-cut image and see if you can find the original crop. The final image was cropped, so it’s a bit of a challenge, but it’s easier if you enlarge the photo.
It’s a really cool image, Paul. I personally think the original looks neat too. I love the contrasting colors! I tried seeing if I could crop it to what you got but I’m not getting it! It’s very creative and my first thought before I even opened the post was that it looked like a kaleidescope! Beautiful work!
The work is different from the many other splendid images and not much like an individual flower, but the heart of the project started with flowers - blooms headed for the recycle bin.
It has roots in the Mandala of Tibetan Buddhism. The Mandala is regarded as a safeguarded place that is separated and protected from the impure outer world. Traditionally the Mandala is circular and not as repetitive.
@Vanessa_Hill I like the original also. It’s about death, but beautiful death is a process flowers often follow.
The rectangle below was turned 90 degrees CCW and was the 1st slice. It was copied and pasted to a “working” blank canvas and flipped horizontally, copied, and pasted back to the base canvas. Using the “move” tool, the two are linked together side by side. Photoshop has a feature that the two pieces snap together and are in perfect alignment.
Now, the linked image on the base canvas is copied and pasted onto the working canvas. You can erase the 1st slice. That image is flipped vertically, copied, and pasted to the back to the base and linked.
This can go on for as many interactions as you like. You can make new crops, fiddle with exposure, and make other changes made during the process.
Just do what you want. If it looks good to you, keep going; if not, erase back to the last change and do something else.
Just beware, the works begin to get very large, and the computer takes more and more time to make adjustments. At one point, this final image I posted was over 3 gigabytes.
I know at first that this body of work doesn’t fit with much of the Floral Category, but it is built from flowers.
