Just Leaves

[Steve Hamley]

Young blackberries in blooming oat grass, very early morning light.

Fujinon 125mm (the early one), Ebony SV45U and Velvia.

Cheers, Steve

[r.e.]

A little deviation from "just" leaves
8x10 paper negative
contact print
CZJ Tessar 300/4.5 @ f16
the exposure time was 45 sec, so I ran to the background as the figure, and then came back to finish the exposure

Nikola,

You are doing some very imaginative work and it's clear that you like to play with what a camera can do.

If you aren't already familiar with him, I'd like to suggest that you look at the work of the French director Michel Gondry, especially his short films and music videos. Many of them, especially his early work, which I suspect you might find interesting, are on this video: http://www.amazon.com/Directors-Vol-...2118439&sr=8-1

Gondry has said that he was heavily influenced by the work of the National Film Board of Canada, and in particular by the work of a man named Norman McLaren. If you are not familiar with McLaren, I think that you might find it interesting to have a look at his films. To do so, go to http://nfb.ca and enter his name in the search box. McLaren won an Academy Award for a short film called Neighbours, which is one of the films that influenced Gondry, but you should also look at a film called Pas de deux. You might also do a search on the NFB site for a fellow named Ryan Larkin, who made purely animated films. If you like his work, there is a film on the NFB site by Chris Landreth that is about Ryan Larkin, and called simply Ryan, that won the Academy Award for animation short in 2005. When Landreth came to the podium at the Academy Awards show, he publicly acknowledged the role that students at Sheridan College in Toronto played in making the film, students not all that much older than you.

Just some stuff that you might find interesting.

[Ken Lee]

I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions on photographing subjects like leaves!

On one hand, leaves are a great subject for Large Format. They are patient - the ideal subject for exploring View Camera adjustments.

On the other hand, they are hard to photograph - much harder than something obvious like a light house at sunset - because they are arranged at random: we have to find the photograph. It becomes a more a matter of our attunement than anything else.

You might find it rewarding to experiment with shooting the same scene, under different kinds of lighting. Or as an exercise, look through the various photos in this thread, with nothing but lighting in mind.

[h2oman]

"It seems that some folks can reach into a pile of leaves and find a photo."

Some here might disagree with me, but don't be afraid to reach into the pile and do a little rarranging, if you can do it without making them look unnatural. I was recently given this advice by a person who had studied under Walker Evans and Paul Caponigro.

By the way, this has been my experience: I'll see beautiful images by someone like Ken, of fairly commonplace things. I think "Oh, there is a lot of that kind of thing out there, it shouldn't be that hard for me to make a photograph like that." then it turns out much, much harder than it looks. I have spent hours wandering through large patches of corn lilies, which a number of photographers (John Sexton, Bruce Barnbaum, Ray McSavaney, etc.) have made wonderful images of, and I've only managed a couple decent, but not really that great, images.

But I've really enjoyed just being out there, trying. Good luck!

[Ken Lee]

In that vein, the leaves I shoot are mostly from one tree in my yard. They arrive only once a year, and fall into a pile for only a day or two before "Fall Cleanup" removes them. Sometimes they never make it into a pile, because of the wind and rain. I have to wait another year.

So there's a very short window of opportunity, with long delay between them: enough to look over the photos several times and toss out most of them as... duds.

Next year I'll get it right

[James Hughes]

You might find it rewarding to experiment with shooting the same scene, under different kinds of lighting. Or as an exercise, look through the various photos in this thread, with nothing but lighting in mind.

Thanks for the suggestion. I definitely need to try out photographing the same scene repeatedly to see how it works out. I'm not sure if leaves will be my first repeat subject though I live in Virginia near Crabtree Falls, so I'm tempted to return there often... (Oh, and I go by Seneca Rocks often enough that I need some better pictures there...)

In that vein, the leaves I shoot are mostly from one tree in my yard. They arrive only once a year, and fall into a pile for only a day or two before "Fall Cleanup" removes them. Sometimes they never make it into a pile, because of the wind and rain. I have to wait another year.

So there's a very short window of opportunity, with long delay between them: enough to look over the photos several times and toss out most of them as... duds.

Next year I'll get it right

How did the photos turn out this year?

[Ken Lee]

How did the photos turn out this year?

I made a number of exposures, and managed to get mostly duds again. I posted one of the better ones on this thread a few days ago (number 357). Here's another:

[Michael Roberts]

Ken, I like this one very much. It also seems to me that it could be stronger if you flip it vertically, though you might consider that to be too conventional a composition.

[ROL]

Having now reviewed the entire thread I can now definitely say three things:

1. There are many truly remarkable images, prints or otherwise.
2. Some have streched the definition, Just Leaves, quite a bit.
3. I haven't actually posted here yet.

Corn Lily Abstract
110 Schneider, TXP 320 (PMK Pyro)

Story here.

[atlcruiser]

I made a number of exposures, and managed to get mostly duds again. I posted one of the better ones on this thread a few days ago (number 357). Here's another:

Wow Ken, There are always a few photos I come back to again and again; this is one. I feel a mild irritation that I cannot produce photos such as this