Big picture vs. detail
July 1, 2013 § 2 Comments
I love chasing light while walking around my neighborhood with my camera and my iPhone. Yes I look like the crazy camera woman cruising around the neighborhood with multiple cameras, but sometimes just using the camera in my iPhone just doesn’t match my vision.
I was drawn this this purple Gladiola flower, and started off by taking an overall image of the flower. I used my iPhone for the image below (no filter, this is straight out of the camera):
And this is the image I posted on my Instagram (using the X-Pro II filter):
But as I love the details of flowers and petals, I had to get in closer to make a macro image. This is the result (edited in Lightroom 4):
Which do you like- the big, overall flower pictures straight out of the iPhone and on Instagram or the detailed macro? Why? Let me know In the comments below.
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I know I’m biased but the third image, the macro, is my obvious favorite because it transforms this Gladiola (which looks as though it has seen better days) into a dreamy flowerscape. Here the confluence of juxtaposing shapes, light and shadow, and bokeh or depth of field, invites the eye to experience this Gladiola in a new and unconventional way — and to me this is always exciting because the flower is now rendered abstract and expressionistic. Heck, at this point we can’t even tell that it’s a Gladiola. And that’s my point. Instead what we care about is the tack-sharp flower tip and the exquisitely blurred background into which the eye willingly free-falls. Nice work.
James,Thank you for your vote, and for the your very thoughtful reasoning.Thanks,Kristina