Saturday, February 16, 2008

Snow on leaves on patio


Snow on leaves on patio, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens, 50 mm 1:1.9
Kodak Gold 200 film
Winter 2008

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like what you're going for with these last two color shots -- textures and patterns, synecdoche, a sort of zen simplicity -- but I think you would find the results even more interesting if you could get much closer to the subject. No need for a macro lens, I shouldn't think, just feels like there's a lot of extraneous space in the frames. Dunno what resolution you have on your scans, but try cropping real tight on different details until you find something that's really the focal point of the picture, then go back and take a new shot of a new subject that has that kind of singularity of attention.

Another thought, since you're messing about with color for the first time -- see if you can figure out what adjustments to your exposure intesify or desaturate the colors. I can never predict in my own shots whether I'm gonna get that rich, syrupy color they have in the ads or the sort of drab, washed out tones that look like a random snap shot. If you can explain how to manage that result, I'd be eternally impressed.

Josh Gentry said...

Cool, James. There's a lot in your comment.

I'll start with the getting closer thing. It's a common mistake I make. The picture with the reflection of the flowers in the window is an example of one where the first time I took it I was too far away, and the next roll of film I took the picture much closer. I agree that I need to keep that in mind.

This particular picture, however, is taken at this distance for composition reasons. The snow on the leaves on the patio caught my eye because it was just cool, but I took this angle and distance because of the diagnols. I believe they help make a pleasing picture here.

Saturation. My experience so far. In intense light that makes you squint, like noon in the desert, its tough not to get overexposed, washed out, kind of whited out pictures. There's probably ways to do it, but you'd have to make some effort. I don' t know yet what that effort would be.

Light that's really comfortable to my eye, sunny day but not overpowering, or inside a room on a sunny day with good light coming through a window, and the light meter gives a green light, nice color. Not syrupy, you might need filters or special lighting for that, but rich, natural color.

Inside and dim or at night, washed out and kind of jaundiced. Seems like if I had to slow down the shutter speed, like to 60, to make the light meter happy, even if it said light was OK, color dull and yellow.

I was sloppy recording shutter speed and aperature on that color role. I'm going to do better next roll.

Josh Gentry said...

I had to look up synecdoche. Nice word.

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