On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 at 21:30:31 -0400, Ann Sanfedele <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
warbled soulfully:
> I thought it might be nice to discuss flower photography...
Now that you mention it...
Flower photography is damned difficult!
My other hobby (my *real* hobby) is gardening. My garden is a very
complex one, and the scenes in it change constantly as different
plants come into and go out of flower. Every so often, just as with
photography, I luck onto something really nice looking. This spring,
for example, _Papaver_orientale_ 'Show Girl' was in flower near --
but not too near -- a nice deep, violet-tinged blue
_Iris_xiphioides_. The poppy is a bright, clear, warm pink, almost a
flamingo pink. Against the background matrix of plain ol' green
plants, the two made a very satisfying colour combination, and a few
friends got invited over to share the pleasure.
But I did not even try to photographate the scene.
Why? Because the eye is so selective in what it sees, whereas the
camera is so unselective. The business of the background would
overwhelm the two plants whose color combination was so pleasing. I
considered for some time if there was any camera angle that would
capture the essence of the planting, and concluded not.
I considered taking a shot at an angle so as to bring the two plants
closer together on film, but concluded that to have both of them in
reasonable focus, I would end up with the uninteresting background
stuff also in focus.
Perhaps the rather short focal length of the eye, compared to a
camera lens, also militated against this.
But even taking a photograph of a single flower is very difficult, if
one wishes to capture the essence of the bloom.
Practice, practice, practice, I suppose is the key.
--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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