Raindrops on the branches were transformed by morning sun and festooned the lace leaf maple with sparkling globes of light. Getting the entire tree in focus is possible, but what if we made this less a photo of a particular tree and a little more about the feeling of light?
Maple tree in the garden, not 20 feet from the house. Water drops from a recent rain still dot the branches. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
In this Time of Covid, traveling is not a good option, so we have been looking for local subjects to photograph. After a recent early morning rain, water drops clinging to our maple tree caught the morning light, causing them to sparkle like diamonds. The scene looked like it might be fun to photograph. I got out my tripod, camera, and telephoto lens, and went into the garden.
Is this a photograph of something?
My first photograph (above) was of the tree, but the telephoto lens threw the background and foreground drops out of focus, softening the image. If I wanted everything in focus, I could have first focused on the nearest water drops, then taken a series of exposures—each exposure focused a little bit deeper into the scene, until I was focused at infinity. . Eventually, I would have a series of exposures that, if "stacked" together with software (something that's easy to do these days) would show everything in sharp focus from front to back. But then I would have a sharp image of a tree in winter.
The thing is, I liked the blurry background that merely hinted at the tree's location. I also liked the patterns made by the bright, blurry suggestions of droplets of water. Instead of making everything sharp, maybe I could emphasize one sharp thing by making everything else out of focus.
A few orange maple leaves still cling to the branches in winter providing a nice splash of color. The slightly off-center leaf acts as a visual anchor and suggests this is a photograph more about the leaf than the drops. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
Moving in closer, I focused on a soggy leaf. The out-of-focus water drops expanded optically and became part of the pattern of the photo. They suggested water drops without detracting from the sharp leaf. I now had a photo of a leaf with a suggestion of rain and sunlight.
What if I went in closer? My next try (below) abandoned the visual anchor of the sharply focused leaf and attempted to create a pleasing pattern of the circles of light and the orange splashes of color. Interesting, but too much detail was preserved—it's still a tree and branches.
A slightly different composition. No real visual focus. This is no longer a photograph of a leaf or tree, but an exercise in creating a pleasing pattern of tonalities and color from the natural elements. Even without a central focus, the composition manages to keep the viewer's eye within the frame. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
I continued to play with different compositions and different focal planes. My last tries were taken with the lens very close to several drops that I let go out of focus. The result was a foreground with large, blurry water drops that created a softness to the image that I liked, but a few tree branches remained sharp and distracted from the pattern.
Or is this a photograph about an idea or feeling?
When I was back in front of the computer, I realized that I wasn't able to go as far into abstraction as I would have liked. The more I studied the image, the more I wanted the image to be about light—with only suggestions of tree and branches. To accomplish that, I would need Photoshop® (see the last photo below)..
These images were fun to make, but fairly abstract, ambiguous and enigmatic. These characteristics are common in art and help create a feeling. It works here, in my opinion. In the process of photographing this scene, I came to realize that I wanted to convey the sense of light—perhaps even lightness of being—that I was experiencing. I wasn't trying to make a photograph of a tree, I was striving to make a photo about that sensation.
The photo as metaphor—it's a quality of photographic art we admire and to which we often aspire in our personal work. It's what Minor White meant when he recommended photographing something "not only for what it is, but for what else it is."
However, the inherent ambiguity in metaphorical art is not the best choice for stressed patients in the healthcare environment. They may not be able to appreciate metaphor. Worse, they may become confused by it. That's the reason we don't include such images in the "evidence-based" galleries of Iris Arts that are vetted for patient areas. But look for them in our section for Corporate Art!
This photograph is more enigmatic, but the solid branch—while providing a clue to the nature of the subject—interferes the attempt at greater abstraction. Imagine, for instance, the large branches being gone. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
More completely abstract and patterned—created quickly in Photoshop® as an example for this blog. This is where I found myself wanting to go with the photo while in the field, but I could not find a way to accomplish it. Careful cloning in Photoshop® might yield something interesting, but not "real."
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