I have been continue to relfect on the comments by Julie earlier this week about our muse quietly waiting for us to find it. That is because of a large mental block that I have regarding my earlier landscape work, many years of singular images. I know that there are some connections and themes that I have worked on over the years and I have had some discussions with Colin with regard to metaphors and suggested meanings for these images.
But I have never been able to get my arms around a connected idea that would consistitue a series. Maybe the simple answer (which can also be the best answer) is that when I was creating my earlier landscape images, that I did not think of creating them in the context of creating a larger body of work in the way that I work on projects and series today. Again, back to the idea that these were all singular images.
So then the question could be asked, why is my intent for still taking the natural landscape images that I still occassional do? Again, that simple answer could be that I enjoy it. You just gotta luv the simple answers! Or perhaps, I am still patiently waiting for my muse to whisper the answer quietly in my ear……
Best regards, Doug
Rocks and Plastic Flowers (From the Series: Bad Trip – Sad Trip)
This image Rocks and Plastic Flowers has been lingering in my series Bad Trip – Sad Trip portfolio and I was not sure of my hesitancy. The rocks and plastic flowers were where I wanted them placed relative to the middle ground desert and the background mountain and clouds. But something was not right with the image I created, so I let this image remain somewhat dormant as I worked on other images for this series. Trouble was, most of the other images were coming together and this one was still not.
So this morning I finally had to confront this image and determine what it was I wanted it to mean, how did I feel about the subject and the feelings I was getting back it. So I did use one of the visual disconnecting “tricks” from my past, which is from a great book on creativity by Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. That is to invert the picture and look at it upside down. Simple to do, but yet effective. (Another is to look at the image in a mirror)
So I first noticed that the picture was divided pretty evenly in thirds, with the lightest band (sky), darkest band (mid-ground) and middle tone band (foreground). Okay so far, but then I noticed that with the image that I had, my eyes keep coming back to the sky. Nice textures, with some dramatic contrast and the one dark cloud really “pop’d out”. That is when I realized that my emphasis with this image was the pretty and dramatic cloud formation, which is not where I wanted the viewer to look, ponder and consider.
This image became a realatively small do-over (I had to take a mulligan on this one). First was to eliminate the local contrast adjustment curve layer that I had created for the entire sky. That effect was immediate, the clouds were not as interesting or have the range of values that held my attention. They were now a bit player and part of the image and not stealing the show.
Then I went back into the Black & White adjustment layer to tweak the yellow and red sliders to ceate a little more contrast between the rocks and the redish dirt. That also helped with the seperation in the values of the middle ground and the one plastic flower that was rising in the middle of the boquet. Then another fine adustment to the curves adjustment layer which provided a little more emphasis, but also opened up the middle ground mountains as an appropriate backdrop within this image. The basket now on the right edge now had a balance in its values and I feel added some tension to the image.
Sometimes I find myself becoming distracted when creating my images and I make all the parts within the image equally dramatic. I will forget that there should be the main element that is the focus of the image and then the rest of the stuff within that are the supporting parts.
