Perennial rudbeckia

click photo to enlarge
After the last two posts I feel the need for colour, and what can be more colourful than the bright yellow petals of perennial rudbeckia against the deep blue of an early autumn sky? In our garden we have a few clumps of these striking and long-lasting flowers. They are a variety of coneflower, one of four genera (including Echinacea) of the Asteraceae family, and are especially useful in bringing strong, bright colour to the garden after the flowers of high summer have faded.

My usual view of these blooms is against the leafy backdrop of the borders in which they reside. So, their yellow sits alongside green. However, for this photograph I made the conscious decision to get down low with the camera - in fact I held it at arms length inside the clump - and photograph upwards to place their colour and the shape of the flower heads against the plain blue of the sky. In the RGB colour model wheel blue and yellow are opposite each other. This makes them complementary colours. A feature of such pairs is that when they are placed next to one another the effect is to increase each colour's visual intensity. As the evenings begin to draw in and the first misty mornings remind us that summer is waning, photographing vibrant colours of this sort is my way of hanging on to something of the departing warmth and sun.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tulips, viewpoints and black and white

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The red and yellow tulips in our garden look better than ever this year. I put that down to the much higher than usual rainfall that we've experienced during April, precipitation that began straight after drought conditions and restrictions were announced. In fact, thus far, as many wits have noted, this drought is the wettest drought on record! But drought or deluge, the tulips have liked it, though they haven't been so keen on the accompanying winds.

I photograph these flowers every year, and the low viewpoint I adopted with this shot is one I've tried before. I've shot them from directly above too, as well as from the side. Flowers are co-operative photographic subjects. In fact, the only two conditions that stop me photographing them at my convenience are wind and insect infestations, and even those circumstances are capable of producing interesting images. But the truth is, because we are so familiar with flowers, they do benefit from a variety of approaches to sustain the viewer's interest.

Periodically I like to try a black and white conversion of a flower photograph. It seems counter-intuitive that a subject that leans so heavily on colour can be improved in any way by being shown in black and white. However, some flowers display an entirely different character when seen this way, as this rose (and this one) demonstrate. So too with the tulips above. In colour the red and yellow combine with the blue of the sky to make three primary colours that impact strongly on the eye. The patches of colour that are the flower heads catch the eye first and give the viewer a lift: the shot has an upbeat feel to it, proclaiming "spring has sprung!" However, in black and white the eye tends to range across the whole of the image with the flower heads assuming less immediate importance. The mood of the shot is very different too, more subdued, even a touch sombre. The flowers look like they might have been photographed in bright moonlight, and the shadows of the knife-like leaves assume a greater importance. The texture of the petals and their subtle shading eventually draw the eye and give a quieter, subtler viewing experience than they exhibit in colour. I have a preference for one photograph over the other, but I think both, in their own way, have something to offer.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 26mm
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A mouse's-eye view

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It's said that 99% of photographs are taken from a height of between 5 feet and 6 feet above the ground; that is to say, eye-level. Moreover, in most of those photographs the camera was level, pointing neither up nor down to any great extent. That being the case, one of the easiest things for anyone to do, anyone that is who wants to make his or her photograph stand out from the crowd, is to get either down low, up high, or point the camera upwards or downwards. Of course many enthusiast and professional photographers do this on a reasonably regular basis, but surprisingly many frequently forget this basic strategy. Including me! Apart from the shot of the swan remants I can't think of any photographs I've taken from a low viewpoint (flowers excepted) in recent months.

So, when I came to take a photograph of my wife in what has become a characteristic pose over the past nine weeks - hosepipe in hand, water sprinkling the flower borders and vegetables - I wondered how to give the shot a "different" character. Then I remembered the low viewpoint: what I call the "mouse's-eye view". I set my compact camera to the 16:9 aspect ratio, positioned it above the hosepipe, and used the latter as the leading line taking the viewer's eye to the main subject: simple and reasonably effective. One day, perhaps, I'll have a camera with a tilting LCD and shots of this kind will be easier to compose. With the LX3 I had to lay prone! Fortunately (though unfortunately for farmers and gardeners) everywhere is dry as a bone and I rose from the lawn with trousers and shirt as clean as when I got down.

click photo to enlarge

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On