Spring Landscape With Poplar Saplings

Impressionistic interpretation of the spring time landscape . This was

created using slow shutter speed and motion blur by photographing from

a moving vehicle. Thanks to anyone who gives this image a bit of their

time, all comments are appreciated.

Great, magnificent, awesome, unique, colourful masterpiece, did i forgot something. This is the true way i feel this kind of photos. Do not mistake to still believe that i wouldnt have something to say about this as you have asked sometimes, i would like to ask you about the sky, are you 100% pleased yourself with it. I know it is something that we cant alter in the shooting moment but still, would you like that it would look a bit different, something like a more sunnier or more ominous. I happend to love the lower part of the photo, and as the older drive shots, you have always had the talent to create the unique strokes and patterns for them. Something that i wont even try to do ever, i leave it to you :) Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks for all those kind adjectives. I think you like these drive-by photos more than anyone else. I like your questions you always get me thinking. I do not think I'm ever 100% happy with an image or at least not so far... maybe one day :) I can normally see something I wish was different or wish there was some way to change an aspect of the photo after it had been taken. In this case I'm mostly happy with the sky. The entire image is subdued and pastel A bright blue sky with lots of sun and white clouds would not suite the mood. I do wish there was more separation in the tones of the clouds they are a bit muddy. I also think this would be stronger if I had less sky and more of the foreground where the blur is more pronounced. I will go back to the original file and see if I cropped any of the foreground out. As always Tero thank for your input it means a lot to me.

The poplars. SNAP, at exactly the right moment. They obey the idiotic "Rule of Thirds," nicely breaking up the landscape. The colors are terrific - bands of green, yellow, green, yellow and more. Not manipulated - major bonus points right there. And the sky - perfect. It is what it was. There are discernible clouds. So many of my overcast days have skies that are a total sheet of grey. Not only is there DOF (blurry DOF - kudos!) but elevation!! Just fantastic. Were you driving? How fast? Be safe, keep snapping. Cheers from another devoted "drive by" fan -

i think tero forgot to say dreamy. this is gorgeous , gordon.

I see you have returned from the beach. I hope the temp. has fallen and the barometer has risen. At 85 F. the beach sounds like the place to be.

 

We get plenty of those sheet of grey overcast days too. I love them for shooting anything but the sky, It's like having a giant soft box for your lighting. I'm sure that overcast sky is a big part of why this image has such a soft feel. Muted tones and no hard shadows go well with pastels. I guess I did nail that rule of thirds, I took 3 frames and this one was most interesting. Something I find curious with this shot is the nature of the distortion. It of course increases the closer you get to the car but it also changes pattern and direction? The front few bands are fairly straight horizontal and then the next couple of bands have begun to pick up a wave pattern, then abruptly at the point where the trees sit the distortion is travelling at an approx. 45 deg. angle to the horizon. The streaks through those tree are heading downward. I recall from reading about chaos theory and watching some PBS shows on that subject that slight changes in a field of current or light or fluid can set up bizarre oscillation patterns. Perhaps that is completely unrelated but odd things happen to images as they bounce about amongst the elements of my lens as it moves through space and all that gets dragged across my CMOS sensor.

 

Sorry I became a bit side track there. No I was not driving at the time. We were on a 10 hour drive to a music festival an hour past Montreal. Vida my lovely and talented assistant does not care for driving on big highways or in cities so we split the driving and I get to be a passenger on the country roads. So that means we were driving around 80 KPH. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts on this one and I'll hope that tropical depression stays out at sea.

Thanks kindly, dreamy does seem a fitting description.

Gordon: This has gone far beyond the experimental stage. The motion studies you're doing now are wonderful. Bravo! Regards, Joe

Thanks: I continue to call these experiments because there is still much mystery to unravel. I think this is what drives me onward to coin a bad pun:)

I really like this one Gordon. The composition works.

I see that the clouds actually have some definition as well, my first thought upon seeing this was thinking you had put two images together, but of course not, you just know your S*#t when it comes motion blur. :) Most of all, this feels like you have woven this image from coloured spider webs, which is extremely pleasing to the eye. Well done. :)

This is a wonderful impressionistic painting. well composed too. I like the muted colours and the yellow ! cheers Jana

Yep, this is really sweet!

This is a quietly speaking image Gord.Horizontal lines all over and some trees are upright, nicely connecting earth and sky,the muted colors are adding to the beauty of silence.

Shayne;

 

I love you description of this as woven spider webs. You are correct that is the original sky.

 

Jana;

 

Thanks for the compliment. Coming form a master of impressionist photos it is high praise.

 

Dave;

 

Thanks for the vote of support and glad you like this.

 

Pnina;

 

I am glad that the quiet of this scene spoke to you. You description is how I see this scene as well. Gentle and understated.

Gordon, the way your shutter captured this landscape is beautiful, the yellow, green and grey flowers and grasses streak across the canvas like oil paints from a paintbrush. Its amazing how blended the foreground is while the middleground trees and far treeline are almost in focus; like Pnina, I also like the way the middleground trees connect to the sky. I love those ominous skies! My first impression was to throw the rule of thirds out and crop off some of the left side but the more I look at it, I think it may be fine as it is.

 

You commented on Mary's elephant image that you admire how I came out of what I went through, that's nice of you to say but its nothing compared to what others go through without the support of family, friends, and contrary to popular belief, the government that was quite generous in helping us get back on our feet. If you look at my untitled compilation of a live cross with stained glass in my Katrina folder you may see that I was, and maybe still am not very strong as I'd like to be at accepting change.

 

Anyway, you've got an excellent technique here, its almost like the daguerreotype process developed by Louis Daguerre. People try to mimic his process in photoshop but I think you're come closer with your automobile and shutter, even if you aren't trying.

 

Kirk

Thanks for the comment. As a general rule I do not give much credence to 'rules'. Sometime I find that, after the fact, I have applied the rule of thirds on a subconscious level, particularly with landscapes. In this case I actually though of a crop that would get me away from the rule of thirds but decided in the end that this worked best.

 

I have just returned from taking a closer look at your Katrina folder and the image you mentioned along with the others. Thanks for directing my attention to them. I have a deeper understanding of your keyboard shot now as well as a generally greater appreciation for your ordeal. It is one thing to see the news coverage and quite another to see the aftermath through the eyes of a photographer such as yourself.

 

I had never thought of these drive-by photos as pseudo-daguerreotypes, an interesting take. I do love daguerreotypes, I'll never forget the first time I held one in my hands. I often day dream about one day getting back to the whole chemistry of photography and experimenting with some of those original processes.

 

I have the greatest respect for the amount of hard work and talent required to work in PS. The results can be truly amazing, however they often look like PS results once you get into using those filter effects etc. To me that does not make PS manipulated images better or worse just very different. When I distort and image in-camera by rotating the camera during a long exposure the result looks nothing like taking a straight shot then applying a swirl filter. For my tastes, at this point in time, I prefer the more organic results of motion over the manipulations of PS. My aspiration is to become competent enough with PS to be able to augment my images but not necessarily create them using PS. At my current rate of progress, I will have sorted out PS2 in time for the release of PS10 :)

Gordon, you're lucky to have touched one of those deurreotypes. I've never seen one in person but find them very interesting even though I've just been introduced.

 

That's funny what you said about PS10! Also, a very valid point about being different but not necessarily better or worse; kind of like Mary's Mustang story.

 

Use whatever tool you enjoy tinkering with, you have to build on your strong points.

 

Thanks for looking at that folder. I have quite a few more shots I would like to eventually post but just haven't gotten around to it.

 

Kirk

My darkroom teacher years ago brought it a few daguerreotypes from his own collections. I have also seem them at the Kodak museum in Rochester. I certainly cannot argue that we are best off following up on what works for us. I look forward to seeing more of your aftermath photos. They are very compelling.

Actually, I think the sky is quite important here for its technical and emotional additions. It provides a sort of melancholy canopy that billows over the subdued warmth of the landscape. The motion blur makes the yellow, in particular, glow almost as if illuminated, so the foreground has a richness which cloudy days don't often offer. The lone sapling is a subject well surrounded by its environment and well suited to the feeling you've helped create with your approach to this. In other words, content and context and technique all seem in harmony to me. I llike the balance of the composition as it is.

You must be right, Fred. I deleted my ill-advised comment. 'Twas only my two cents (Canadian, of course).

 

Nice image, Gordon.

 

The Photographer Who Came From The Cold

I really did mean just to provide my own opinion for Gordon's consideration, not to suggest that your own thoughts on the matter were not valid or interesting.

I only had the briefest opportunity to read your comment and look at your alternate crop yesterday before having to leave for the day. This being your first time commenting on my work I want you to know that I alway appreciate suggestions for alternate crops or anything else for that matter. I ended up with something like 8 or 9 comments on images yesterday and did not have a chance to respond to any of them until this morn. Just wanted you to know I was tardy rather than disinterested in what you had to say.

 

As best as I recall, you had tightened up the crop and move that little patch of poplars to the left somewhat. I was surprised at how the flow of the image changed with that alternate crop. I did not get the chance to look long enough to become completeley comfortable with the idea but I did notice one thing which I found interesting. Removing some of the top portion on the cloud cover did change the balance in such a way that it lost some of the symmetry created by the similar width of the band of foreground blur before the tree clump and the band of sky. I had been a bit uneasy with that symmetry so some form of crop to narrow the sky would be worth exploring. I do like the feel of the sky itself, it has a billowing feel and a softness that works well with the rest of the image IMO.

 

I could be wrong but I think you asked me why I chose this crop. I have a reason although it is most likely not a terribly good one. I used to shot with medium format cameras and on occasion 35 mm back when I shot film. Whenever I used the 35 mm I was alway aware of how small that negative was going to be and it had an effect on my shooting and later on in the darkroom it had an effect on my cropping. I am now using A 20D with an APS sensor so at this point I am using a less than 35mm full frame sensor and it just kills me to have to crop away any more of the image than I have to. I have not gotten to the point of printing my work. I am at the moment trying to sort out the best printer for my purposes. Once I start printing I may find my notion nothing more than a prejudice held from years gone by in which case I will no doubt have to shift my thinking a bit.

 

Roger, I appreciated you dropping by and taking the time to work up your version, it was good to hear from you and I offer my apologies for taking so long to get back to you.

 

I also recall a comment about dealing with all the snow that fell while you were away. We are having rain for the next few days and although it ain't pretty I don't have to blow or shovel it !! I'm hoping the rain will generate some nice foggy mornings... We'll have to see.

Last time I looked this past Fri. our two cents Canadian is worth more than the US two cents. As Bush continues to put the US economy into the dumpster my winter vacations to Central America keep getting less expensive :)

Thanks for dropping in and offering your opinion, you know I value your thoughts. I do like that sky. I find it pleasing for its own merits. I also like its contribution to the general flow of the motion blur from front to back through the image. I find often in these drive-by images the relative stability of the sky anchors the entire composition. I am a bit conflicted now which is good since for me the point of putting images up for critique is to get myself thinking. I am going to work on reducing the amount of sky slightly and let that idea settle a bit and see how it feels. I am alway open to considering other possibilities.

 

I am quite sure it was never your intention to influence Roger's opinions. I hope he understands and continues to offer me critique.

I did not want or mean to malign Roger's opinions, but I actually was considering that what I wrote might have an influence on his thoughts, and yours. Especially when it comes to cropping, I am keenly aware of how much difference even the slightest crop can make. I've just been working on a photo for over a week, one I'm extremeley pleased with but that I sensed could go one step further. When I finally realized, with the help of a friend, that a slightly different crop would really add a dimension, I was thrilled and also impressed by how much a change in the dimensions affected the feel. It wasn't even as much about what was included or deleted by the differet crops, although that played a role, as it was about the actual proportionality of the entire image. Sometimes, this kind of dimensional cropping makes a very intangible but somewhat powerful difference. So I wish you luck in determining a crop that best suits what you want to get from and convey in the image.

 

As much as I may have considered influencing yours and Roger's opinions, for the reasons stated in my original comment, I was more hoping for this kind of discussion because composition is probably one of the elements of an image I am most unsure of and flexible on. I tend to be very influenced by what comes out of the camera, and have to challenge myself to see that image cropped differently. If you do change the crop, I will be most interested to see what you come up with and to hear your thoughts on why you've changed it, because I know that, at this stage, my own opinion can be very much influenced and I'm always excited when it is.

 

I'll end by saying that a crop in your image here may be as much about content as dimension. You may, indeed feel that less or more sky is as crucial to you as the overall finished dimension. So many choices!

 

I, too, hope Roger's critiques continue, as his is just the kind of critique we all appreciate, thoughtful and explanatory and given in earnest and with justification.