Just Like Everywhere

[Brenna Gates]

I took a trip to central Mexico recently, and these cacti were some of the coolest looking plants I'd ever seen. The shadows the spines created really caught my eye. I wanted to capture the starkness of the area and the cactus so I used higher contrast B&W. Did it work? I'm curious as to what this photo says to someone who wasn't there when it was taken.

Thanks for looking!

Brenna

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Brenna,

This crop is not working well enough for me (might work for others though) if one of your goals is to show the starkness of the area. It would have had more impact if we could see things a bit wider. On the other hand, you may need to zoom in closer on the cacti for the shadows of the spines. So you are trying to achieve two goals which are difficult to combine in one picture. I think that it is a commendable effort what you've done and it can improve somewhat if you'd reduce the contrast a bit. Re. the B&W, we have had many discussions in the past as to when and how to do it. I am not going to get us started again, especially since everyone has a different opinion of it. But since there seems to be some flower buds on the cacti leaves, I am wondering how this would look like in color.

Thanks for sharing,

Cheers

 

[Wendy Thurman]

Brenna-

I would have preferred this on the vertical- less distracting stuff on the left side and you might have caught the top of the plant. As Cem mentioned, a little less contrast would probably make the image a bit richer, tonally.

You are on to something here- keep shooting and thank you for sharing!

Wendy

 

[fahim mohammed]

As Cem mentioned, I think if you could show the cactus relative to its environs, wider angle, it would
imho be more catching. maybe a series...wide, narrow, tele and macro.

Best.

 

[Brenna Gates]

Hello all,

Thank you for all the feedback! That shot actually wasn't cropped very much, and it was the only one I took when I was there! Which I regret, but I was being rushed along by my family.

So I took some of your advice, and did something else with it to try to get the colors, 'cause maybe it's not good for B&W, and there's lower contrast now.

Well?

 

[Asher Kelman]

Brenna,

Much more pleasing and enjoyable. The color adds a positive and the flower an optimistic mood.

Your title has "candy clouds" in it and that would be so nice to include by shooting upwards to the sky. That serves to both isolate the cactus from the background, (if that's uninteresting) and adds the special clouds you note interest in.

Now the way you have snapped the image, you have created wonderful OOF, (out of focus), blobs of color which are pleasant. The distribution of the real estate in the picture does at first seem rather awkward, however, this is somewhat balanced by the glimpse, albeit limited of an ethereal milieu. It's quite hard to compose complex cacti plants like this. You know they are impressive and the flowers are pretty, but just how does one get this into a 2D flat plane?

So I'd go back and take more. Try getting in more background, again using a wide open lens if possible and then also doing angled shots to place the interesting flowering part of the cactus against the candy cloud sky or else against the gently "bokeh" of flowers and greenery.

Keep at it. I think that without there being clear form and or texture, the steroids of color are needed to make it go zing!

Asher

 

[Brenna Gates]

Asher,

Thanks so much! I like this way better too. The "candy clouds" thing is just my username in Photobucket, which I use to host my photos.

I wish I could go back so badly! Unfortunately, I'm not in Mexico anymore, and I didn't get near as long as I wanted in that spot. I did get these other two, they just didn't seem as promising to me. But what do you all think?