I photographed frost feathers for a long time found the results to be bland. So brainstormed and come up with a way to juice things up. Put lights behind subject and took an extreme close up

This is awesome! I wish it were my photograph. Your creative problem solving worked out quite nicely. Keep up the good work.

A challenging concept, beautifully rendered. Thanks for sharing your intentions and problem solving. It's nice to know the processes behind the magic.

creative & innovative. This is art in the real world!

clever thoughts brings out clever photos

Very interesting. What do you mean frost feathers? Just frost or using a feather some how? :0)

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this image raised in me some though abt abstract: the image is abstract, there is not one way one could look at it, colors are abstract, there is no reason for a clear subject, but rather subject may be "leaves", "ice formations resembling leaves", "interaction between light and ice" etc. The point is, i don't feel emotionally taken away by this image, abstract should deceive me some way, should bring me somewhere, and this time, this image, just dont' do the trick for me. I don't want to be misunderstood, i am not saying i don't like it, nor i cant evaluate it completely under the technical standpoint... just this particular image is not for me - i will check photographer portfolio to see if other images works better to me. The only technical appoint i can make.... why so small??? a bit larger probably structures would have been visible allowing deeper exploration of the image. Regards.

Glen,

 

Congrats on doing something original. That is as far as I go with my compliments for this week's entry. I do not like the colors you chose, as the vibrations hit me in a way that is not very appealing. Perhaps it is because you covered a lot of the spectrum. If you stayed with low or high frequencies, it would be a lot more appealing, at least to me. I'd like to hear what others have to say. This image, although a representation of nature, seems rather other-wordly to me.

I am speechless in the face of such awe-inspiring beauty. If some color is good, how about some more? Increase the SAT by 43%, put it on velvet, and put it under a UV light and let's see what we can get.

 

Glenn has some good pictures, but, without the color, the composition on this one just does not work.

But isn't artistic photography, by its very nature, a series of problem solving (through aesthetic and technical decisions) in order to achieve ones desired results?

Sorry, I find this garish. However, the idea may have some merit, and additional experimentation and refinement of technique may produce a more pleasing result. Perhaps experimenting with the choice of background bulb colour as well as placement of the bulb might produce something more aesthetically pleasing. As it stands, there is little harmony amongst the refracted colours.

For those of you that appreciate patterns in nature...(and a good many do) May I suggest:

series of ice crystals on windows by Phil Geusebroek

I began my interest in photography at the age of 10 when I used to spend lots of time looking through coffee table books of nature photography, landscape photography and macros. Those images inspired me to pursue photography.

I still enjoy "seeing" common subjects in a special way and still it takes my breath away. Some may call it eye-candy and I respect it is just not to their taste. I do, however, embrace and enjoy attempts to create abstract art through photography.

I do like this image but prefer the Geusebroek ice shots in the link above... Still - nice attempt. I hope the photographer continues to pursue the frosty feathers with different natural lighting and am envious that I don't get to experiment myself since I've moved away from Vermont and am in the warmer winters.

Good idea, good execution, and nice picture. IMHO it composition could have been a bit more selective. I do not know how much real estate Glen had when taking this picture, but sometimes, it is hard to find a good, clean composition from what nature gives us. It requires patience, many attempts to find that special pattern hidden down there. IMHO this is a good start. I would try to see if you can actually create your own forst feathers. Once you master that I am sure you can create very interestesting compositions.

Maybe an excellent picture or maybe not. All I can see is a heavily compressed jpg with many artifacts. I would like to see a better uploaded file of the same photo.

It's not unlike a Japanese kimono... fantastical bird(s)/feathers on bright silk. The idea is interesting but the composition/color leaves a little to be desired for my aesthetics. I'd sure like to see more though, because there's a lot of potential in this.

I do like the creativity that is shown in this image.

The image itself has some good points and i sort of like it.

Mondiani, those jpg compression artifacts are probably ice chinks, or ice textures in the window. At least, I hope so.

 

I've shot ice crystals before, long ago, and decided in the end that no matter how hard I tried, all I'd get in the end was a picture of something better seen in real life. I have to admit, this is far better than anything I ever would have come up with. Adding color was a stroke of genius. However, unless the result is 4x5 feet large, the image does not have very much residential power in my mind, which means: I see it, recognize its beauty, and the effort required to produce it, and then it sort of fades away, like Jack Dawson sinking into the cold Atlantic. To someone who subscribes to "Ice Formations Magazine," this must be a pants wetter, but to me, it's just a nice shot of something I'd rather see in real life.

 

Maybe this is not a fair review. Yes, it's a nice result after a little problem solving, and a little thought did go a long way, and the photographer, maybe he wasn't trying to set the world on fire, or make the photo of the week, or whatever. A desire to make pictures that are a little more than ordinary, even if they are of ordinary things, can hinder one from breaking out the camera, and it can destroy one's appreciation for otherwise excellent pictures, perhaps like this one. I think I fail to appreciate the longterm, or deeper value of the beauty others see in this shot. The shot itself doesn't feel about the beauty of nature, or the cold of winter, it seems to be about the creativity of photography, but this could be a knee-jerk reaction to magenta and blue gels, which in comercial photography, were always on standby to jazz up a boring, or difficult subject. Nothing evil about that, but it makes my experience with the photograph superficial.

Try two polarizers, one for light, one for camera

Adding supplemental lighting to a subject for the purpose of taking still photographs does not strike me as much of an innovation. In this sense the effort made appears to more closely resemble scattered sprinkles than brainstorms.

 

I am guessing that the intention here is artistic but this photograph seems hampered by the fact that it is presented in the form of a small jpeg without the ability to render the fine detail that would make this a worthwhile interpretation of frost feathers. This photograph mostly reminds me of my mothers efforts to beautify her home by painting various objects (usually discarded glass containers) with crinkle finish paint. My apologies for yet another reference to passing kitsch fads of the seventies decade.

 

There does not appear to be any unifying compositional structure to this image. It appears to be more or less random and therefore does not please the eye which strives to make order out of nature. Those things to which we can assign no order, are those that have no meaning for us. The marvel of nature is the inherent implication of structure and elegant design rendering human meaning. In this photograph I see no such element of order or intellect of design. To my mind the composition is as lifeless as a dime store mannequin (in the nineteen fifties, dollar stores were referred to as dime stores).

 

The ideas and experience assembled here seem to have reached an evolutionary dead-end (for me at least). The first thing I would try to do to improve this subject would be to get closer. I think in this instance color is secondary to composition and does not save the subject or composition from being what it is.

This appears to be quite similar to the crystal art photography of Australian

cinematographer Jim Frazier, who claims to have come up with the process circa 1978.

For an article in which Frazier discusses his technique, see http://www.findarticles.com/p/

articles/mi_m1590/is_4_56/ai_57041275. Examples of Frazier's work (and a short video

documenting his process) used to be posted at www.soldworldwide.com, but it appears

that the site is now down. However, archived versions of the site can still be retrieved

from the Internet Archive (www.archive.org) by using the "The Wayback Machine" function.

Nice concept, good use of color and textures but needs tightening to control the viewer's eye. As someone mentioned, the 'eye' is looking for a pattern or controlled movement. If you study the image longer now, this crop is successful. If it does not, it has failed.

I think the idea is excellent but let down by the upload. There's no real snap to the image and it's a bit small.

1) I agree with Mary ball to say that Mr. Goesbroek has a couple of pictures that I find nicer than this one.

2) I feel such images, generally speaking, have a decorative value, but not much more - for me.

3) Therefore the aesthetics of such an image really have to be as perfect as possible. Unfortunately, here, I think the aesthetics are not that great:

a) I like the composition, although I can see that a square format - cropping more than Mike Seewald on the right - was a more "straight-to-the-point" approach, and would probably result in a wonderful enlargement - assuming image quality allows it.

b) I don't mind at all the pretty good idea of using back-lighting for a NATURAL subject (which is obviously inspired by traditional studio still life work). BUT... I feel that the red gel should really have remained in the drawer. I think the red light just pulls the eye towards an unimportant part of the composition, and I also think that the choice of combining red and blue on a natural subject is quite garrish. Whereas just blue alone or combinations like blue and light green would have made a lot more sense given the "cold" nature of the subject. I have very often used in studio the combination of red and blue gels, but I always used it for "funky" subjects and electrical moods: I just can't see it as very tasteful for a picture ofice.

As a conclusion, since the colors are now what they are, I don't like the picture all that much, and I may even suggest to crop it to a square, and to convert it to B&W. So much for a good idea, which could have gone a much longer way imo, had the colors be chosen more carefully.

Just wanted to add, after looking at Michael Seewald's crop again, that if we take this crop, and then crop on the right some more to get a perfect square, then I like the resulting square very much - even in color, since the red at the side will be gone. Regards.

I have seen the larger (and full) size here:

 

http://community.webshots.com/photo/29947419/24469713NKPomypYcs

 

It makes such a difference. Congratulations.