I just read the new posting on the Garden Gone Wild PIcture This Contest. I looked through my photos to find images for what the contest might be asking.

This seemed like an easier criteria this month than others because what was being requested was so well written, illustrated and explained. Explained even twice. It is too late to enter an image to fit the compositional techniques, but I am hoping to get some feedback on how I did handle the project, a very differently interpreted entry. I tried to fill the scene with mood, drama, story, lighting and emotion. The subject of the forest and forest floor was not as readily identifiable, being overshadowed with the mood set by the time of day. Also, a mistake at that time of day, I should have had a tripod along. In fact, all these images were shot handheld.

Maybe I am reading far too much into this, but think my entry may not have been a good choice.  I did show the forest at different times of the day, and focused in on the plants blanketing the floor, but it still lacks something in ‘filling the frame’ with that one representative image.

After looking at hundreds of images that were taken recently, I came up empty. It really is a study of an in-depth subject that seems to be more in keeping with what is outlined as guidance. I am always looking to learn and improve, so thought to look through images taken this fall.

I believe the guidelines suggest story telling with a subject that highlights prominently what the image is trying to convey, but clearly sees the subject with compositional interest, all the while ‘filling the frame, corner to corner’. A very tall order when you consider macro and micro shots seem much easier to deal with to flood a frame with image, but it was noted this is not necessarily the case.

The way a painter approaches a blank canvas, especially one that is abstract in nature, dealing with scale, form and color; positive and negative space, may be a good way to think about the framing as was also noted. Well, I should be able to understand it from this perspective, but all my images that have elements similar to the examples come up short. They make nice photos, but taking a small piece of the landscape and telling the story, well, not so much when they are about only one plant. I guess I have to look at it from the perspective of an editor. What image sells my product.

So I looked to my garden and explored one bed filled with grasses and Rudbeckia. The only problem here is if I want pretty lighting, I would have to literally paint it in. There is no time of day that really gives the subject good natural lighting. In the next bed over, the trees are artificially up-lighted and the roses are blanked in soft light, but nothing in this bed illuminates the plants, artificial or natural that benefits a photograph.

I stepped back and shot the ‘garden’ image.

I moved in closer to cover the group and note the players having color and contrast.

Then I looked for how the two plants interacted together and fit within the design of the garden bed.

I focused in on one type of plant.

Then zeroed in on one a little centered. Here I suppose you could say my image was flooded with warm tones of yellows. Well, that was my intent anyway. That background, by the way, is yellow tissue paper in case you were wondering. The lighting is a daylight fluorescent tube, filtered through the yellow tissue paper. It does seem to resemble daylight, but it was not very bright.

And tried again, walking around the subject getting different lighting and angle, now off-center and weighted to one side. It is a softer looking image, but still yellow on yellow.

And again, weighted to the other side with the light filtering through. The scene was not lit as much as it looks here, I overexposed the last two images. The first one was taken at a ‘normal’ exposure. Just a little trying out the suggestion of not framing completely centered. I did try also to crop the images to have the flower ‘fill the frame’, but it did take away a little of my yellow on yellow theme.

Finally, I showed them dying. After all, this is what most of them really look like now.

Moving on to the other main garden subject showing the grasses a month later, and having only a few remaining Rudbeckia….

in all their fluffy greatness, stealing the show from the Rudbeckia in this image today, we have our next garden partner, the grasses. But the Rudbeckia is still hanging in there.

I re-focused on the only ones left today, amongst thousands of little Rudbeckia offspring.

Many of which will never reach maturity to flower.

And those yet to set seed with the grasses.

I focused in on the seed heads of the grasses from all different angles and proximity,

and in isolation. They are the second biggest player in this bed, so they deserved the attention.

But I really still have no story to tell. Because this garden is in shade most of the day and only sees a little bright afternoon sun. It is also a bed where the homeless found a home. The garden faces a neighbor’s house (her driveway is shown), and it is almost never visited my me. It does have a good variety of plants that bloom in different seasons for a basically haphazardly designed bed.

No water, no planting, no mulch, no conditioning, pretty much no anything. It lives without any assistance. The only time I even see it is to take a few photos.  So this is its story. The garden of neglect. So how can I show that? No clue. Since it seems to thrive fully packed, plant neighbor to plant neighbor, in ground hard as concrete, without me and the sun that the plants really need. I can not pull a story from that, at least pictorially speaking.

So that is my story and I am sticking with it. Heck, I tried, and that is all that matters. LOL.