Outside the Region of Clarity
This is an example of limited depth of field. Only a narrow band is clear, and things become fuzzy when we move away from it. The further we get from the band of focus, the less we can see what’s going on.
In this simple case, it’s pretty easy to see that there’s not much going on in the fuzzy regions; we can infer, probably pretty accurately, that the same drop-covered surface extends in both directions and the result is just an increasingly smooth tone as things get more and more out of focus.
If there was more going on in the fuzzy areas, with vague lines and objects, regions of different color, and so on, then we might be able to guess what’s going on. Of course, the likelihood of being right diminishes the further we get from the zone of clarity even for a richer image.
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Dance of the Thorns
This picture of weeds looks very different depending on how we see it. Looking closely at the plants, they seem spikey, forbidding, like they will break if touched. But looking at the overall arrangement, it evokes the graceful lines of ballet dancers — easy to imagine flowing movement.
This is an example of how observing things at different scales can cause us to see them differently.
Read more Convergence
This scene caught my eye because of the way many strands of web all converged on the single leaf. This was taken on a foggy morning, and the strands stood out because they were covered in drops of water. I think the thing that seemed surprising was the sheer number of individual strands.
Looking at it later, I was also struck by the many different places that the strands came from, creating a powerful structure for catching food. The individual strands work together, producing something that is stronger than a single single one.
Ideas can work this way.
Read more Beautiful Fading
This is a picture of fading flowers taken while looking upwards into a tree. Even though the flowers are fading, definitely past their prime, something about this scene still struck me as pretty, almost whimsical.
I framed the flowers deliberately off center, I think because it added to the sense of whimsy or light-heartedness. The blurred background also helped highlight the flower cluster and make it pop out, as did desaturating and dimming the colors in the background a little.
These things helped highlight the pretty aspects of the flowers – the light yellow color, gentle lines, and soft textures.
Nevertheless, a close look reveals that the flowers are dying, and it still seems incongruous that we would find this beautiful.
Why does this work? Why do we find beauty in scenes that are not necessarily inviting? Do we ignore the actual content and react to the abstract colors, forms, and patterns? Or do we see something more than what is pictured, and from that sense beauty?
I think these things are worth pondering, and have done so elsewhere, so that photography for me becomes more than just the pictures.
Isolations: A Volunteer
This is a simple picture of a tree in a field. Unremarkable, but the composition can be seen as a different example of “Isolations” as described in a previous post – Conversing with Photography.
To me, this picture is not just a lone tree in a field, but when related to the line of trees just beyond it, it is a volunteer.
Imagine some people standing in a line, all facing the same direction, and a volunteer is asked for. It may be for a dangerous mission, or a tricky sports maneuver, or even just being the first to taste a new ice cream. As often happens in such cases, imagine that only a single person steps forward.
“I’ll do it.”
That’s what I see here. The individual standing tall, just a step forward from those remaining back in the line. Anonymous, undifferentiated except in willingness.
The isolated tree looks taller from the vantage from which the picture was taken, but I don’t know if it really was or not.
I wonder if anyone else sees this? And if they didn’t at first, do they now that I’ve described it? If so, does that make the picture any more interesting?
This is an open question for me – the relationship between taking a picture and explaining it. Part of me says that pictures should stand on their own. But on the other hand, that seems like an arbitrary requirement, like saying that the visual part of a movie should stand on its own without sound. Both silent movies and modern movies are valid, they just are different. So couldn’t it be the same for photography?
Perhaps some creations involve both image and text. But then, would that sort of creation need a different name than “photograph”?
Interesting questions, but perhaps not that important. I find it helpful and fun to occasionally enhance photos with text, and so will probably continue to do so.
Escape
This is a picture of a leek blossom, just opening up. It’s actually a bundle of small flowers.
I like this picture because of its beauty. Part of that, to me, is the sense of things moving towards the right. There’s a tension, a leaning in that direction that makes it seem as if individual flowers are straining to move that way. The tilt of the blossom, the curve at the top of the casing, the loose spacing of the flowers at the right, all work to give this sense.
It looks as if the blossoms are bursting out, trying to escape and get away from the pod, like some alien capsule discharging its crowd of travelers after a very long voyage.
This sense of escape is something we can all identify with. Aren’t there times in our lives when we long to escape? It may be from the daily grind, from a bad job or relationship, from a disease or other uncomfortable situation.
Read more Seeing Life
One of the persistently difficult questions that comes up in science is how to define life – how to determine if something is living. To most of us, it’s fairly obvious. Plants and animals, including humans, are alive. Rocks, water, and so on, are not.
However, the question gets more complicated for scientists that study things like viruses and other very simple organisms that, although they are organic and interact with other living things, do not have all the characteristics of other life. Nevertheless, they often have DNA and it seems troubling for some reason to not think of them as living.
Regardless of what one thinks about this issue, the initial observation, that it’s obvious to most of us what life looks like, is worth some deeper consideration.
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Seeing With Awareness
I took this picture recently while on a photo walk. During the walk, I was intentionally open to new perspectives, so it’s easier to notice things that I would normally miss.
In this case, it seemed like the box appeared to be a face. Now, this box is in our front yard and I’ve probably looked at it hundreds of times without noticing that. But with an open mind, the association jumped out.
Read more New Ways to Engage With Spherical Photos
In an earlier essay, I talked about the different pieces of a spherical photograph experience. Here, I want to look at the static introduction image piece a little more closely.
Spherical photos are inherently interactive because humans cannot see an entire sphere at one time without severely distorting the image. Before interacting with the image, people often encounter a representation of it that is static. This is often a thumbnail image of one portion of the whole sphere. Occasionally, it may be most or all of the sphere as a highly distorted image.*
Read more Another Way to Focus
I recently took a picture of some plants that had interesting leaves. The picture had a calm aspect, the details on the leaves looking almost fuzzy. A little later, I reprocessed it to be black and white. The result gave a different feel to the picture. With the green color removed, the unusually shaped leaves and almost spiky texture jumped out.
Here are the two versions:
