Cody White
Member
I also had to try one doing one of a dead rose
How does this work?
and Thanks for looking
How does this work?
and Thanks for looking
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Dead Rose- another night shot.
- Thread starter Cody White
- Start date
Cody White
Member
Shameful Bump
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cody White: Dead Rose- another night shot
Hi Cody,
How does this work now? I think better when it's not stashed against one side like a discarded painting. I'm glad you bumped it up to get another chance to be shown well. Now that it's given a new setting, like in a gallery, we should stand and think about if afresh. It's not something to ignore. but I do have to think of it more.
I do have questions about the picture. Have you had a controlling idea in your mind about this picture beyond the title?
I see evidence of beauty that has withered and slipped away like the last breaths of a forgotten woman in the gutter who had known days of glory and splendor.
Asher
Ken Tanaka
pro member
Cody,
Honestly, this doesn't work well to my eyes. It looks carelessly framed and captured. Everything is out of focus...and not in a creative or an expressive manner. My impression is that you just snapped it handheld with your camera flash ... everything on auto.
If you want to pursue this type of subject first decide what the heck you want to convey with the images. Why dead flowers? Why night?
Frankly, the best of this type of work that I've seen has been done without a camera at all, using a technique called photograms or using a simple flatbed scanner.
Honestly, this doesn't work well to my eyes. It looks carelessly framed and captured. Everything is out of focus...and not in a creative or an expressive manner. My impression is that you just snapped it handheld with your camera flash ... everything on auto.
If you want to pursue this type of subject first decide what the heck you want to convey with the images. Why dead flowers? Why night?
Frankly, the best of this type of work that I've seen has been done without a camera at all, using a technique called photograms or using a simple flatbed scanner.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cody,
My thoughts were as Ken's
Yes the evidence of the past of the rose is what a dead rose is! What's missing then? Your own controlling idea as the elements of the rose become your photograph. What we see s the work of a camera not the work a person driven by thoughts and expressed with deliberate craft.
I wrote the extra words last night, but deleted that as too harsh. Now, in the morning I realize that I'm no friend of yours, if I just comment on the poetics of a dead rose. I am not honest failing to directly address what you have shown. After all, you have gone to the trouble of going outside to snap the picture and posted a number of versions.
Asher
My thoughts were as Ken's
Yes the evidence of the past of the rose is what a dead rose is! What's missing then? Your own controlling idea as the elements of the rose become your photograph. What we see s the work of a camera not the work a person driven by thoughts and expressed with deliberate craft.
I wrote the extra words last night, but deleted that as too harsh. Now, in the morning I realize that I'm no friend of yours, if I just comment on the poetics of a dead rose. I am not honest failing to directly address what you have shown. After all, you have gone to the trouble of going outside to snap the picture and posted a number of versions.
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cody,
Don't give up on the project. Develop a composition. Light it with a bedside lamp, perhaps. What surface is it on? Where are the petals that fell off? Is there a part that's still alive?
You have taken on a project that's, as I have indicated last night, which potentially is buttressed by so much collective memory in our culture. Consider this to be the official picture of the death of Juliet.
"Never was there so much woe
Then befell Juliet and her Romeo"
That is just one of the countless memories waiting to help you, inspire you as you craft your photograph of that special rose.
Keep at it. Write down notes of what you might do first. Plan it as a movie director might do. Sketch it. Move things around. Rework ideas until you are thrilled. That then will spill over to us!
OTOH, it's what it is, a snap and I'm being too serious and demanding. If that's the case, my then this is just my own over-zealousness in my reactions to the pic and you can say, "Well Ken is Ken and as usual, in far more words, Asher is Asher!"
Don't give up on the project. Develop a composition. Light it with a bedside lamp, perhaps. What surface is it on? Where are the petals that fell off? Is there a part that's still alive?
You have taken on a project that's, as I have indicated last night, which potentially is buttressed by so much collective memory in our culture. Consider this to be the official picture of the death of Juliet.
"Never was there so much woe
Then befell Juliet and her Romeo"
That is just one of the countless memories waiting to help you, inspire you as you craft your photograph of that special rose.
Keep at it. Write down notes of what you might do first. Plan it as a movie director might do. Sketch it. Move things around. Rework ideas until you are thrilled. That then will spill over to us!
OTOH, it's what it is, a snap and I'm being too serious and demanding. If that's the case, my then this is just my own over-zealousness in my reactions to the pic and you can say, "Well Ken is Ken and as usual, in far more words, Asher is Asher!"
Rachel Foster
New member
I've done the dead flower thing, too, but ti has to have a message, I think. It should also be lighted in a way that makes it interesting. But I like that you're going beyond the typical.
Ken Tanaka
pro member
Asher,
Yes, as is common you're very excessive in your commentary. I realize that you're a gracious fellow and make every effort to be encouraging and supportive, very much like a paternal reaction to their kids' crayon scrawls. But I gotta say that you've taken an excursion far beyond what this image, and Cody's terse (20 words, plus two more to garner attention) unpunctuated remarks, merit.
In the words of Sigmund Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, man. This is a cigar. ;-)
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ken,
Too true! I have painful insight to my own long comments! However, without these our bracketed excesses of care, consideration and caution there would be no "terse, succinct Ken" nor the admittedly "over-nurturing, even indulgent Asher", just the grayer middle ground of utter decorum and considerate manners.
Despite the lack of what could be in the posted picture, I still can't help recognizing the esthetic potential and hard challenge photographing a dead or dying rose. After all, the camera caught evidence that here was indeed before the camera a dying rose. That fact is incontestable. So a challenge to our senses is there as soon as we see the picture, irrespective of it's value as a photograph.
Asher
Cody White
Member
Ken,
The only thing that was in auto mode was the flash.
Just because everything is not as sharp as a tack. When I look back at this, I did not plan the shot, so one can say it's just snapped. Now when I look back on this I can see death is unclear and fuzzy, then their is the hour that is crisp just waiting. then everything goes hazy as we slip away in to the darkness.
You ask Why dead flowers, I say Why not, Doesn't it get old and boring of doing the same old thing, the same set up.
Why night? Doesn't night also deserve the same chance as day time?
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cody,
I doubt Ken is really complaining about particular choices, LOL For art, he'd likely always defer to the individual photographer. Rather, I think, his interest is likely this; he's asking for your motivation! His words are precise and well intended. Don't read his questions as being dismissive.
"Why not?" is not an answer that moves us towards any understanding your interest in the subject you choose to photograph.
If you can, indeed, articulate what value you see in the subject of "The Dead Rose" and the theme of "Dying", then, how to improve the photograph would follow. No one's questioning your selection of the dead rose. It's just needs further concept development. Can you articulate your interest better? Can you then get that into a picture?
After all the photograph is not just about what is actually there. It's about an idea in your mind that you embed somehow into the picture.
Asher
Jean Henderson
New member
Hi Cody,
There is something about dead roses that used to interest me a lot, too, but I've never used them as subject matter. You say it is at night, but the lighting and composition doesn't say "night" to me -- it might just be a dead rose on a dark background. The only thing that says "night" to me is the title. I know what I would do now, but can only give you a hint so you can make it yours -- light.
Also, the focus is so poor that I had to push myself to read on initially. But it was the responses to your request that I got involved with, not the image, due to it's focus. Where do you want the viewer to look? Why? Focus on that.
Ken is always rather succinct in his comments, but I almost always find his comments to be right to the visual point and right on. It seems to me that he is asking you to think things through visually just as he does and his images show that he does.
Where are you at in your photographic journey? Where do you want to go on that journey? How can reworking this subject matter bring you closer to your goal? (Please accept that I say all this without the benefit of seeing your other images as both Asher and Ken seem to have done.)
Jean
There is something about dead roses that used to interest me a lot, too, but I've never used them as subject matter. You say it is at night, but the lighting and composition doesn't say "night" to me -- it might just be a dead rose on a dark background. The only thing that says "night" to me is the title. I know what I would do now, but can only give you a hint so you can make it yours -- light.
Also, the focus is so poor that I had to push myself to read on initially. But it was the responses to your request that I got involved with, not the image, due to it's focus. Where do you want the viewer to look? Why? Focus on that.
Ken is always rather succinct in his comments, but I almost always find his comments to be right to the visual point and right on. It seems to me that he is asking you to think things through visually just as he does and his images show that he does.
Where are you at in your photographic journey? Where do you want to go on that journey? How can reworking this subject matter bring you closer to your goal? (Please accept that I say all this without the benefit of seeing your other images as both Asher and Ken seem to have done.)
Jean
Rachel Foster
New member
For my part, when Ken comments, I listen.
Jeremy Waller
New member
Good one Cody.
I now appreciate the difference between a "Dried Flower Arrangement" and a "Dead Flower Arrangement"
Jeremy
I now appreciate the difference between a "Dried Flower Arrangement" and a "Dead Flower Arrangement"
Jeremy
Rachel Foster
New member
I thought of this thread when I ran across a photo of dead/dying flowers. I thought this one was wonderful.
Angel Navarro
New member
Cody,
Any idea you chose to execute is just that... YOUR idea. That said, let's look beyond the choice of subject matter. Your depth of field is too shalow, meaning your aperture is too large. It places the focus (no pun intended) on a very limited portion of the subject. While the effect is neat, the outcome is not rewarding the viewer as he/she sees wrinkled pedals in the foreground is cut short of the rear and more suave pedals.
The lighting required a snoot. A toilet paper roll worx if your using a small flash. The idea is to narrow your lighting to the withering "??" and illuminate its surrounding using the light fall-off produced by the snoot. The stem on the left is receiving too much illumination and competes for attention.
Composition wise, you might have rendered a better photograph from the right side of the withering "??" as this would have placed the stem in the rear-most part of your design. The two visible leaves may have very well framed our withering "??" for a better composition.
Well, enough hairs split.
~ Angel
Any idea you chose to execute is just that... YOUR idea. That said, let's look beyond the choice of subject matter. Your depth of field is too shalow, meaning your aperture is too large. It places the focus (no pun intended) on a very limited portion of the subject. While the effect is neat, the outcome is not rewarding the viewer as he/she sees wrinkled pedals in the foreground is cut short of the rear and more suave pedals.
The lighting required a snoot. A toilet paper roll worx if your using a small flash. The idea is to narrow your lighting to the withering "??" and illuminate its surrounding using the light fall-off produced by the snoot. The stem on the left is receiving too much illumination and competes for attention.
Composition wise, you might have rendered a better photograph from the right side of the withering "??" as this would have placed the stem in the rear-most part of your design. The two visible leaves may have very well framed our withering "??" for a better composition.
Well, enough hairs split.
~ Angel