Detail – Tulips and Sea of Forget-Me-Nots
As I get closer to launching a redesign of my PhotoBotanic website, I’ve started playing with tulip photos. I have long used a tulip as my logo, even in the website toolbar, and am wondering if I need a new one.
These ‘Niigata’ tulips (red) with the dark purple ‘Havran’ are floating on a sea of Forget-me-Nots (Myosotis sylvatica), a color combination designed by Lucy Tolmach when she was Head of Horticulture at Filoli gardens in California. Exquisite color combination that is at once random and hypnotizing. I doubt one of these interpretations will be any good for a logo but am sure having fun with Photoshop’s Liquify filter.
My first serious use of Liquify was in the sunflower post Vincent x Vincent a few months ago. For the tulips I wanted to use much smaller strokes and accent the blue sea of Forget-me-nots. The Liquify filter is used last, on top of a couple adjustment layers and a ‘Dry Point’ filter (which is masked for the red tulips). Using the brush strokes of the Liquify filter begins to feel like painting, but it’s easy to get gimmicky.
First I tried using a long strokes to create currents in the blue sea.
Tulips and Sea of Forget-Me-Nots – Swirl
But opted for the many small strokes.
Tulips and Sea of Forget-Me-Nots – Strokes
The brushwork is done while the image is at 100% so it is a frustration for me to try and show these photos on a computer screen. While they do have a wonderful translucent glow, the size is so small. Oh, for the day these are big prints and the viewing distance is in meters not centimeters. View in Archive.
The original photo was composed from this wider view. Nice garden, eh?
Filoli Wall Garden in spring with tulips
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It really is a pretty garden. I love the massing of the bulbs. Your use of photoshop on the image was different. I do like the first image best.
Thanks for checking in. With all these postings at Mental Seeds I am trying new things. The liquify filter lets me feel a wee bit like I am painting.
Saxon,
Having seen the beautiful Myosotis and tulip gardens at Filoli over the years, I admired your photo as another of those many variations. Only when I read your text and saw the full photo posted below (third from top) did I realize that the first one (the detail at top) had the little swirls. You have reminded me how often we see what we expect and what our hasty habits do to our perception. I always appreciate your exploration of this puzzle.
Thanks Steve. When we see photos we naturally assume they are “real”. The camera always lies, in sometimes subtle in sometimes egregious ways. Glad you appreciate my explorations.