Critique Desired: Small Stack of Sycamore Stuff

Fall foliage in the Midwest US, at least in North Central Illinois, has been underwhelming so far. There are colors, but they're mostly at the subtle end of the scale. This may be due to the cooler than usual summer.

So, this little pile of leaves on the ground served as a stand in for the day.


The photo is a throw away, but the shadows surprised me. The sky was solid overcast, and yet at the early hour - about 8:00AM - there was enough directionality to cast very soft shadows. This is probably old hat to most, but for me it was a pleasant discovery.

The sienna leaf is the subject, and the idea was to use green Sycamore leaves and bark as the stage. It works for me (today anyway), but would very much like to hear the ruthless opinion of others. Sycamore on Sycamore might just be a distraction.

Thanks,

Tom

Yup, that works to create a simple little composition. The soft shadows create a bit of depth. I wish the composition wasn't so centered but the angularity of the leaf vein patterns, and their intersections, distract me from that tedium and salvage the overall comp. Rotating the gold leaf approximately 2 deg. clockwise would create an even stronger diagonal (upper left to lower right) composition.

Sycamore on Sycamore!

Yes, tom, Sycamore leaves with so many colors are intriguing! I too was caught using my time, in vain, I must admit, to get pictures at least that I admired. There are several barriers to get over. One of them is lighting. You have very even diffused light, great for portraits, but I'm not sure about fallen leaves! The second issue is composition.

Tom Robbins said:

The photo is a throw away, but the shadows surprised me. The sky was solid overcast, and yet at the early hour - about 8:00AM - there was enough directionality to cast very soft shadows. This is probably old hat to most, but for me it was a pleasant discovery.

The sienna leaf is the subject, and the idea was to use green Sycamore leaves and bark as the stage. It works for me (today anyway), but would very much like to hear the ruthless opinion of others. Sycamore on Sycamore might just be a distraction.

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I too favor the sienna leaf, in fact anything sienna is an easy win for me. However, we have such a lot going for us, that's the ability of our brain to parse and enjoy the nuanced delicate shadowing and highlights that the camera does not reveal. The camera, however, just records a very limited set of this data, although your image is very well exposed. So I feel that the distribution of the mid point of the gray scale and the contrast curve can bring out more of what might be the drama of the pile of autumns gifts. Since I have not seen your still life setup, all I can do is give my version, not your intent. I have tried to enhance shadows and the uniqueness of the sienna leaf and impart levels of importance.



Asher

Thank you Ken and Asher,

I appreciate your observations and suggestions very much.

200 frames were taken of this simple subject, so experimenting with compositions is not a problem. I'm glad the notion of Sycamore on Sycamore wasn't seen as a mistake - I kind of liked it. The neutral lighting leaves a lot of leeway for adjustments, and your example points the way, Asher.

Tom Robbins said:

200 frames were taken of this simple subject, so experimenting with compositions is not a problem.

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If it's any consolation, it's said that Edward Weston, trying to get one shell balanced on another and at the right angle and rotation, was such under such maniacal and obsessional nervous strain, that his wife and son where practically banned from coming near his room or closing doors. He labored long to get the positions just right and then wait for the sun's angle to be just right to give the illumination he thought he might need. These two parts, composition and lighting worked together but it was an iterative process, trying each day to improve on what he did yesterday and weeks before.

The leaves are difficult to compose with. The very angle change that Ken suggests was a helpful idea, one that I had previously rejected, but now I'll look at again. I admit, I still don't know yet how to compose with just leaves I find. Maybe it's because I haven't sketched it first. I guess one has to know leaves like Weston knew shells and women.

Asher

Asher, thanks for the background story about Edward Weston's struggle with the double shell photograph. It's the first photo that comes to mind when his name comes up, but I didn't know that that much time and anguish were involved in its creation.

These days, anyone with such compulsion and intensity would likely be presumed to be off their meds. One might imagine that for most folks, objectivity and perspective would be early casualties of such an effort. Dabbling over a pile of leaves on an autumn morning is a healthier endeavor, but perhaps also less apt to produce a work of art. This is a humbling proposition.

Tom

Tom Robbins said:

Asher, thanks for the background story about Edward Weston's struggle with the double shell photograph. It's the first photo that comes to mind when his name comes up, but I didn't know that that much time and anguish were involved in its creation.

These days, anyone with such compulsion and intensity would likely be presumed to be off their meds. One might imagine that for most folks, objectivity and perspective would be early casualties of such an effort. Dabbling over a pile of leaves on an autumn morning is a healthier endeavor, but perhaps also less apt to produce a work of art. This is a humbling proposition.

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Yom,

I have always admired your knack of nailing some aspect of man interfacing with nature though your eye for patterns, decay and such. The junction between two things allows us to compare and contrast what we are looking at and then perhaps weigh other matters in reference to that. So today, I collected a pile of leaves, no Sycamore today. I worked with them to look at how they might be arranged, promising myself to stop before I was 50% blind or seeing double. It turns out to be hard to do. At least no one else was home. I discovered some ideas, but realized it does take observation and study to understand the qualities of the different leaves.

Anyway, I hope this will lead to some more pictures with the cones with red seeds that are falling from trees, I call tulip trees but they are probably something else and I'll post pics shortly.

I do feel false to arrange leaves! If one doesn't there may be no design! So there's the dilemma. Shoot one leaf? Pick two or three, maybe. But if one has say 20 leaves, a pattern seems to be called for and it's not obvious!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

I do feel false to arrange leaves! If one doesn't there may be no design! So there's the dilemma. Shoot one leaf? Pick two or three, maybe. But if one has say 20 leaves, a pattern seems to be called for and it's not obvious!

Asher

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I understand the feeling well Asher; it's an interesting dilemma, don't you think? John Szarkowski ruminated upon, and wrote succinctly about, this very topic.

My gut feeling is there is no essential false or true when arranging leaves, or other elements in a macro (or any other, for that matter) composition. Edward Weston obviously didn't give a damn about the ethics of subject manipulation in a still life composition, and there is no reason to think he should have.

Perhaps our ethical dilemma with leaves is wrapped up in context: indoor still life implies human involvement, while outdoor still life implies only mother nature's involvement. For myself, the distinction is not either/or, but a personal decision based on circumstances.

In other words, throw that leaf over your shoulder and shoot it where it lies. But if nobody is watching, place it exactly where you want it!

Tom

Tom Robbins said:

I understand the feeling well Asher; it's an interesting dilemma, don't you think? John Szarkowski ruminated upon, and wrote succinctly about, this very topic.

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Tom,

Where is the reference. I have his book.

Tom Robbins said:

In other words, throw that leaf over your shoulder and shoot it where it lies. But if nobody is watching, place it exactly where you want it!

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I did exactly that today, but I let the leaves fall over a little girl who's mother had discovered my garden edge an excellent rest space.

Trouble is 18 month old Tova shut her eyes as the leaves came down!

Asher

Tom Robbins said:

In other words, throw that leaf over your shoulder and shoot it where it lies. But if nobody is watching, place it exactly where you want it!

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Hi Tom

I like your "Sycamore on Sycamore" very much, but prefer Asher's edited version. I can really identify with the above reference, last Autumn I spent hours and hours positioning leaves and tidying up branches of leaves, removing the ones I didn't like. Today I'll be doing the same again.....

Janet,

Thanks for looking and comments. Yes, Asher's version has a little more oomph, doesn't it? The result is a better image, I think. So many photos these days have overcooked contrast and saturation, and I tend to be overly conservative in both respects. As a result, the initial version was just shy of optimum.

Asher,

John Szarkowski wrote a few books, I believe. The one I was thinking of was Looking at Photographs, 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, originally published in 1973. He describes the changes in photography from its very early days to around the 1960s. Viewers of very early photos were impressed by the technology, and Szarkowski explains how they felt that having a photograph of a thing was equivalent to possessing the very thing. The technology matured through the years, and the feelings about the purpose of images by both photographers and viewers changed. Inherent in this was the question, what is being represented: the subject as it is, or the subject as the photographer sees it? Unless I missed his point, his description of every photo in the book touches on this theme.

Some examples where the photographer's intentions were remarked upon as departures from, for lack of a better word, reality:
Madonna with Children, by Julia Margaret Cameron. American Rural Baroque, by Ralph Steiner. Henlein's Parents, Reichenau, Sudeten Section of Czechoslovakia, by Margaret Bourke-White. Children, by Helen Levitt.

Son of a Sharecropper Combing Hair in Bedroom of Shack, Missouri, by Russel Lee is described by Szarkowski as an image from a photographer whose "...subjects were often so simple that they bordered on banality. His vantage point inevitably seemed the most obvious one". A photo by such a photographer could easily be thought to be as free of manipulation as possible, yet Szarkowski points out that the particular photo works because it includes what it includes, and excludes what it excludes. Placing a frame around a scene divorces it from the world, and thus changes it.

I may be completely off the mark, but my take on one of the author's main points is that a photographer can be true to his intentions while being less so to reality.

So, place that leaf where it belongs.

Tom