Image #1, "Frosty Laurel Leaves"

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Since this is one that has been cited by viewers who have gone to the web site, so I'll start with it. There will be a maximum of one a week from now on. (I hope!)

And thanks to Bob Atkins for offering this posting and to Andrei for doing the conversion of the image's file size and putting it up on his site.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), July 16, 1998

Answers

Very striking. Stong diagonal composition. I love the contrast between dark tones and the ice-coated edges. The leaf at the very top/center edge is a tiny bit distracting, and there doesn't seem to be a focal point, but those aren't necessarily bad things.

You're in a gallery, right? This must sell very well.

Best Wishes,

Keith

-- Keith Clark (ClarkPhotography@spiritone.com), July 16, 1998.


i agree with keith that the frost lines *make* this image work. but, for whatever reason, it works, indeed. beautiful tapestry effect, and the colors in the laurel are wonderfully subtle.

-- wayne harrison (wayno@netmcr.com), July 17, 1998.

This might have worked better if you had gotten a little further away and included all of the leaf in the lower center of the composition. Then again, doing so may have included some distracting elements. This is an excellent photo, one you should be proud of.

-- Darron Spohn (sspohn@concentric.net), July 17, 1998.

Nice work Frank. Colours wonderful. Composition very nice. I think that the cutoff of part of the leaaves on all sides helps to enforce the notion that this tapestry continues on. The frosted accents on the edges of the leaves are the "icing" on the cake!

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), July 17, 1998.

As Darron suggested and as you have all experienced, there are reasons for the slightly annoying composition, but it is still quite acceptable. This section of the bush was more nearly in a plane than anywhere else, so an exposure of f/22 at a second or so could keep almost everything sharp. I might crop the left side a tiny bit to reduce the area containing the more distant and slightly darker leaves as I feel this is what is throwing the image off. But, its funny, I never noticed this on an original print, so, maybe it's just the additional handling the image has been through to get it on view here.

Canon F1 (even then it was 20 years old) 200mm Macro on a Benbo (before I wore it out). Film is the incredible Kodachrome 25 (I still haven't found a suitable substitute and, if I give up LF, I'll go back to it again.)

Thanks,

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), July 17, 1998.



Really nice. Like others have said, I have mixed feelings about so many leafes cut off at the edges, but it is really nice to look at his image in detail and observe how the different leaves intertwine. Do you have more photos of this scene? Would be interesting to compare several.

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), July 20, 1998.

Andreas,

This is the best of the type, the others don't deserve a second look, let alone being posted here.

As with any image of repeating shapes in nature, there often isn't any neat boundary to use in creating an image, the best one can do is select the most interesting cut-off points. That is the case here. I could have kept backing up until the whole plant and then several plants and then all the plants were in the image, but there would still be an arbitrary frame boundary and the the effect of the leaf pattern and the frost on the edges would be lost.

Thanks for the kind comments.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), July 21, 1998.


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