M'eyes Tapestry - Weeping Crabapple After the Rain, November
I promised myself I would complete a portfolio of images documenting my perceptions after the detached retina. There were a good number attempts to do this with my G11 camera in the first months after the surgery. I never got around to working on very many of them.
These photos are the weeping crabapple tree, ‘Molten Lava’ just outside my office door. (Click on the photo to see a larger view.) As I walk out of the office and look into the lower garden, past the variegated Rhamnus and toward the autumnal orange foliage of Cotinus ‘Grace’, the red fruit of the crabapple move in relation to the shapes beyond. My hyper acute perception that I don’t have depth perception makes me see these red balls of fruit as if they were a cel film overlay in an animation studio.
What fun really to see the shapes line up and become a tapestry ! Planes of perception, sliding back and forth as I move in mere inches this way and that. The ability to crop exquisitely in post production, to peek through just enough of the spikey Phormium in the foreground, after cropping out some empty space in the lower right, gives a final composition that fills the frame with a fine balance of shape, texture, and color.
Here is how it looked originally before I worked on it.
I adjusted the color, cropped, removed the stake holding up the young tree, and used a Topaz Simplify filter, BuzSim (adjusted) to create a rich, nearly surreal rendition to match my mood.
In another view of the same scene I used a PhotoShop filter, ‘Palette Knife’ to render the effect. (click photo for larger view)
Red Rruit of Crabapple 'Molten Lava' After the Rain, November
Note in this version I kept the stake that supports the tree but removed the Phormium leaf. So many small aesthetic decisions need to be made that can make a huge difference to the balance and composition of the final photo. Who knows I may change them again. So much to learn …
More images to come. Here is a link to a previous post and photos I took of the Cotinus ‘Grace’ shrub seen in the background, all taken in those same few days, November 2010, after the second surgery.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
The pink background and blue midground makes this shot I think. Very nice.
Thanks Donna. Yeah the pink beyond, the Cotinus, wants to pull you in and explore, but the red fruit wants to make you stop and consider the foreground.
When you dissect the photography process (creation and ‘post-production’), it is really amazing to realize how much you do intuitively, but how much beyond that is possible. This post illustrates that so well. I am a diehard fill-the-framer, often leaving little room beyond the impact I want to create. I realize later that I haven’t shot a possible cover, nor have I always shown context. In that respect, it’s always good to study the work of other photographers. Lovely garden, too, Saxon!
Thanks for stopping by Janet.
I sometimes find myself staring through the viewfinder, trying to force a photo into a full frame, wondering why it isn’t working. That’s the time to rethink the “frame” and allow for the cropping later.
I keep coming back to look at this image, again and again. The light, the patterns and such color- can I get it wall size? I’ll ditch my furniture and just live in this photo…
Love it that you keep coming back. Thanks. Light is so very important. I am trying everything to enhance, affect, or draw attention to light in my photos these days.