Banana Split

Don't know what category really....

 

This is a couple of slices of banana, backlit with small LED lamp.

Tilt lens used to add some "flow" to the photograph.

 

Any thoughts/comments/input much appreciated.

This is very cool! It seems a bit out of focus to me, but that might just be the lighting. I think it would be neat to see more of the veins, but that's me. It almost looks like an x-ray image. Again this is incredibly interesting, I love it - Lex

...the focus technique seems to give depth to what I imagine is a fairly flat slice.....betweent the two slices there is much more depth..good light too...well takrn!

 

 

(regarding the camera posting..I've not recieved it yet, and I move house on Monday.....if you get it first, email me to do the exchange,.....I'm getting my mail held as well.) take care!

Alexa, thanks for your feedback on this picture. I'm doing a lot of experimentation with small light sources and also with tilt lens. The tilt lens has been used to deliberately throw some parts of the photograph out of focus while retaining other parts in the same plane in focus. These are very thin slices of banana (just a 1 or 2 mm thick) sandwiched between two sheets of glass. I could have quite easily kept the whole of the image in sharp focus as the subject is essentially two dimensional. But the idea behind defocussing some parts of the two dimensional photograph is to drag the eye to certain parts of the image and to make viewing somewhat uncomfortable I suppose. For some reason I like the discomfort! I see some sort of flow and depth in something that is flat. As Shaun has just pointed out, there is a sort of depth created. Obviously, this won't be to everybody's taste....but I just seem to like odd stuff :))

 

Thanks again Alexa.

 

 

 

 

Shaun - and you too. Thanks for taking the time to comment. You're right about the (de)focus creating depth to very thin slices. I'm enjoying playtime!

 

I hope that camera turns up soon. Any idea who it was going to first? Definitely nothing here yet. was it just you, Kimberley and I in the UK? I can't think of anyone else on the list.

Pete, let me get this right. So you take two thin slices of banana, two sheets of glass, LED lighting, tilt lens, backlighting an then shoot it intentionally out of focus (in part). I think we should all band together and get you a job, a full time gig using that phD. Your shots continue to inspire, thank you, thank you.

This is such a neat idea! How did you come up with it? Thanks for explanation of how you took this photo. Again I love this - Lex

Again the backlight adds a great drama and impact with this one. This is very original and cool. I like the narrow DOF but I think I would have liked a little larger area of sharp focus to hang onto. I like being destabilized but a life raft can come in handy. I love dropping around your place, I always find something way outside the box to consider.

 

Cheers

 

Gord

Craig, many thanks for the kind words. It would be great if someone would get me a job when I've finished the PhD (STILL doing it)....trouble is, it doesn't involve the things I like doing...photography, skiing, dog walking... And it's nowhere near as enjoyable as putting together photographic ideas that pop into my head when I'm either sleeping or digging or climbing trees!

 

Lex, thanks again! As for how I came up with the idea....well, I've got some glass shelves I was about to throw out. As I looked at them I remembered some picture Gordon Bowbrick too of a plant growing up between two panes of glass. And recently I bought my daughter a microscope and started thinking about microscope slides. And I also remembered the pictures Rachel Foster took where she illuminated flowers from below and behind with a small LED lamp. And the nice BW photographs taken by Ian Cox-Leigh came to mind as well. And I just happened to have my tilt adapter fitted to the camera. So it all sort of happened!

 

Gord, thank you too! I'm going to be shooting this again shortly and will give it a go with a slightly smaller aperture to increase the breadth of the in-focus area. I still have the sliced banana between glass sitting in my freezer all ready to go :) I'm hoping to go for a sharp band going diagonally from left hand side of bottom banana through to right hand side of top banana!

 

Cheers again all.

My English language abilities denies me to write a short novel as comment so i just say that i like a lot this treatment. This looks enough odd to fit in my taste. hoping to see some more of your experiments.

Almost an x-ray, this is a completely unique study on a banana. It feels like a point plotted somewhere between science and art. Very interesting. Now, back to work on your thesis.

I'm drifting around Photo.net today and I just had to say how much I like this. I hate to disagree with Gordon, but I think the lower banana is in sharp enough focus to be that 'life raft'.

 

I am also intrigued by the sense of distance here too. The top-most banana is also a bit bigger (probably due to the fact that more the peel is clinging on) than the bottom one and that adds to the perception of depth.

 

I am also amazed by the way you have sectioned this banana. I love the inclusion of the peel. It add so very, very much the image, to have this half-attached, half-removed peel and stem.

 

The toning here is certainly very much to my liking as well and feel it really adds to the sense of warmth I the light and to the sense of depth to the image (to my eyes warm-toned mono or duotones have a greater depth than the same image in a colder mono or duotone).

 

Very nice. A series of similar images of other fruit would make an intriguing study. I've seen sectioned back-lit fruits and vegetables before. But, never in B&W and never with sections of the image purposely OOF.