Blue Fiesta

This is a Blue Fiesta, Pholistoma auritum var. auritum.

I chose to show this small flower with a simple composition employing three distinct layers of focus, with the main subject matter (the flower) offset a little to the left, and the secondary subject matter (the rest of the plant) offset a little to the right.

The nearest of the three layers, the purple flower, is fully focused; the middle, the stems, leaves, and buds, are blurred so all detail is lost, but the shapes are still recognizable; and the background is blurred utterly. I chose to use this presentation to bring strong emphasis to the flower... to make it seem to almost emerge from the picture. I wanted the presentation of the secondary subject matter to be just enough to suggest the rest, without competing with the flower. I wanted to present the background in a manner that gives ambience, but doesn't give any recognizable material to compete with any of the subject matter.

Blue fiesta works well for this composition, because the broad, flattish flowers make it easier to get the whole flower (Or, at least, the edges and the center) in focus. The long, narrow, fairly straight stems make it easier to neatly separate the near field of full focus from the middle field of partial focus, with little gradual transition between them. Darker colors behind the subjects help prevent the background from distracting. Dim light makes it easier to get the very shallow depth of field necessary to make this kind of picture work. I used as small of an aperture as necessary to get the foreground flower within the depth of field, but no smaller... I kept the aperture as large as possible.

I used a long lens (300 mm, plus a 1.4 teleconverter, for a total of 420 mm focal length), to isolate the plant from its surroundings, and used extension tubes to allow closer focus.

I used the depth of field preview to get the depth of field as I wanted.

I underexposed the picture slightly, and then selectively oversharpened it, to add some noise/grain, to give the middleground and background layers a somewhat dreamy look of separateness.

I hope you enjoy it.


© Mike Spinak

www.mikespinak.com

Mike,

This is a very carefully executed aesthetic and I like it!

As you know I'm a fan of your meticulous work, producing the images of your mind for delivery to the world.

Here, may I offer one addition. Can you experiment with the idea of an addtional out of focus, element of a leaf in the lower right 1/3rd of the picture as it appears to need something there for balance. It could also be a small closed bud of the flower.

Asher

Thanks, Asher.

I don't feel it needs something in the lower right for balance, however, I welcome you PS Blue Fiesta, to show me what you have in mind.

Mike,

I like your Blue Fiesta, and appreciate your approach.

It seems most subjects of photography become more three dimensional when composing a shot through the viewfinder. Macro subjects are the most extreme examples of this, especially when the subject is a flower. Trying to get a foreground petal and a background petal in focus while maintaining a background with some reasonable semblance of good bokeh is an exercise in trade offs.

An unusual shot...it did not grab me at first but then I kept looking.

The more you look at it, the more it puzzles. The flower seem to be almost floating up against the glass while the stalk is firmly in the background. There's no intermediate accounting for the vast space that seems to be between the tiny flower and the space that supports it.

It keeps you looking.

Thanks for the recreation of the technical steps that went into the image...otherwise it would have been a real puzzler for me.

This Mike's Blue Fiesta, Pholistoma auritum var. auritum. The workmanship on the flower in making it pop up from it's background is remarkable. This is not a snapshot or some picture hastily put together from a series of 20 pictures shot over a few minutes. If I know Mike at all, this was planned from the outset to be as he has shown.

There was likely already a sketch in his mind and he carefully moved his camera towards achieving his vision. (I don't think that vision is ever completed on the field, since the camera cannot see what the mind sees, impossilbe!)

He took the 3 photographs of the layers he wished. Just the three! That was how he planned it and that's how he works. For sure he would have allowed a leeway in framing for final assembly, but not a lot! This is his final image.


© Mike Spinak

Pictures don't necessarily get printed the way they first appear on the photographer's screen, since making a picture is an experience the artist has and works within from start to finish, and until the final accepted print is signed "BAT", "bon at tier", the work is still a "work in progress".

So, I might, at this point, before Mike has printed the picture, suggest, with his forebearance, my slight changes to his special personal picture.

As I said, above, I felt there is some imbalance with the flower being not at peace with the rest of the real estate. The stem and buds can have more to say, so to speak, in bringin in some greater harmony to a very good image. Now I offer this with some trepidation and real humility.



© Mike Spinak edits Asher Kelman

I do hope that this is a satisfying change and does not detract. Likey, this is what you would do anyway before the final print. However, these things are very much part of the creative dialog between a work of art and it's creator. I'm just presenting and example of what one might do in a case like this.

The flower has been rotated. The stem has been extended to make it a little more important, just enough to counterbalance the power of the foreground flower.

Asher

Thank you, Asher, for the work you've put into showing me what you have in mind. Your version is intriguing. I'm not sure what I think of it. I'll sleep on it, and let you know, tomorrow.

By the way:

He took the 3 photographs of the layers he wished. Just the three!

Click to expand...

To be clear, I took one photo. This isn't a focus-stacked photomontage, this is a single exposure.

Mike Spinak said:

Thank you, Asher, for the work you've put into showing me what you have in mind. Your version is intriguing. I'm not sure what I think of it. I'll sleep on it, and let you know, tomorrow.

By the way:



To be clear, I took one photo. This isn't a focus-stacked photomontage, this is a single exposure.

Click to expand...

Well Mike,

I know it's a trespass, but this is what we do when something beautiful happens by. I certainly enjoy the work you bring here! The opportunity to interact with talented people is part of the fascination and reward of OPF for me.

Thanks again for letting us into your creative world,

Your friend,

Asher

Concerning the layers, I now see you just held them in your mind until you sat in front of the computer screen. That is what I keep telling Nicolas, LOL! The computer screen has become a de novo re-initiation point of the creative process. The vision is held from the outset in the brain, sort of freeze framed and then the creative process is restarted as if the field and the computer screen are really one fused continuous world.

Hi, Asher,

I've now given your re-work of my picture due consideration. While I find yours to be another valid interpretation, I still prefer my original. I do appreciate your efforts to show me your vision of this picture; and consideration of yours did help me better understand my own intentions for this picture.
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And, again, by the way:

Concerning the layers, I now see you just held them in your mind until you sat in front of the computer screen.

Click to expand...

To be clear, the 3 layer focusing effect seen in this picture was achieved entirely in camera, on the scene. While I do add final polish to my nature pictures on the computer (small adjustments to contrast, color balance, rotation and cropping, etc.), I do not seriously manipulate my nature pictures. I show what the camera saw.

I think it can be perfectly artistically valid to manipulate a picture as extremely as befits one's vision, intention, and communication. However, with my nature pictures, one of my purposes is to show the wondrous beauty of the natural world, to help grow viewers' appreciation for nature. Heavily manipulating pictures to show unreal versions of the world is contradictory with this end.

In the case of Blue Fiesta, the most extreme post-processing manipulation I performed was an exaggeration of the picture's noise/grain... which I consider minor enough so as not to harm the authenticity.

With my wedding photography, it's a different matter entirely. With my wedding photography, any amount of manipulation is acceptable, so long as the clients perceive such manipulation as improvement. But this is not the case with my nature photography.