I Don’t Do Flowers, but . . .
September 15, 2017
I don’t photograph many flowers. But these begonia blossoms really got to me. I think the photos are too Hallmark cardy, but I had fun. Here are five variations on the same shot.
Romancing Reality
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Gorgeous images, Linda. I like the last one a lot, but have to admit that the colour images, especially the second one, have a lot going for them. Adrian
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September 15, 2017 at 3:29 AM
Thank you, Adrian. I was lucky that the background went to white. The shot wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if there were color there—even if I had remembered to shoot it wide open like this.
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September 15, 2017 at 12:42 PM
I think you may be too harsh on greeting card photography. I’ve seen some really nice work on cards. I like the softness of the last image.
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September 15, 2017 at 8:53 AM
Thanks, Ken. And now I stand chastened. I will look at the next Hallmark cards I see with an open mind, and if I find some “nice work on cards,” I will think of you.
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September 15, 2017 at 12:44 PM
Lovely, lovely. I think number three is my favorite, but some of the soft focus ones have a certain appeal also. They remind me some of the old movie closeups that made everything soft and “romantic”.
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September 15, 2017 at 1:37 PM
Thank you, Patricia. I’m sure that was the spell I was under. Glad you like these. I just had to get these begonias nailed. (Bought them at the Ann Arbor farmers market.)
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September 15, 2017 at 4:52 PM
Based on these, Linda, I’d love to see you do more flowers.
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September 16, 2017 at 1:55 AM
Thank you, Alan. I didn’t really intend to follow this post with more featuring flowers, but they came up sort of chronologically. Now I can think of them as responding to your wishes even before I was consciously aware of them.
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September 16, 2017 at 10:44 AM
🙂
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September 18, 2017 at 12:26 AM
Lovely. The first one is my favourite. 🙂
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September 16, 2017 at 9:16 AM
Thanks, Dina. I didn’t ask people for a vote but wish now that I had. So thanks for yours. I can’t choose one myself; that’s why I had to post all five.
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September 16, 2017 at 10:46 AM
You had fun! I love the last one – like Adrian, I like them all, but the last one goes off in a different direction, kind of mystical. The third one strikes me, too – for opposite reasons I guess, if that makes any sense at all. I know what you mean about concern about an image looking too much like a greeting card. Years ago, with my first digital camera and desktop computer, I combined images with words and had a great time doing it. I thought they were innovative. I showed them to an aesthetically sophisticated friend and he said they reminded him of greeting cards, Crushing!
That being said, pretty isn’t a bad thing. Are these non-stop Begonias? I love this type, love to see rows of them in hanging baskets at nurseries, all fluffy with delicious colors.
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September 16, 2017 at 3:47 PM
Yes, I did have fun. Made a slew of images of the plant, but this was definitely the best. Happy you found one to love. . . . Yes, these are nonstop begonias that have been going strong since May, when I bought them. . . . Sometimes aesthetically sophisticated friends are hard to be with. 😉 A woman who is a photographer of note told me seven or so years ago that my photographs were too flat, that I needed to go for more depth. Several years later, after she had moved away and when I began revelling in dumpster walls, her words still rang in my ears. I refused to stop with my dumpster obsession, though (as you may have noticed). Then a few weeks ago—out of the blue, after five years of no verbal exchanges—I heard from her. I send the same photos I post on this blog to an e-mail list I’d started before the blog, and she was responding to one of my photos. “This is a beautiful photograph,” she wrote. Guess what she was responding to. Yup, one of the dumpster photos. So I guess you never know. Now I will stop letting her badger me (in my head) about taking flat photographs. And you, Lynn, have totally vindicated yourself with the way you combine your narratives with your photographs on your blog posts. There’s absolutely nothing like a greeting card about them!
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September 16, 2017 at 4:12 PM
It’s interesting how people’s opinions can get in the way, but really, you did keep going, so the voices in your head weren’t THAT strong. Still, it’s good to vanquish them. And she saw the light! 😉
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September 18, 2017 at 4:28 PM
Well if you don’t do flowers…you picked the right ones. What is more beautiful. Like your soft touch on those delicacies.
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September 16, 2017 at 7:31 PM
Thank you, George. I had been looking at and admiring other people’s photographs of flowers taken with a wide aperture and just wanted to see what would happen if I tried that. I was surprised to see what I could achieve. Will have to try it again.
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September 17, 2017 at 10:13 AM
“Other people” mainly being Lynn Wohlers, who blogs at bluebrightly.com.
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September 17, 2017 at 10:17 AM