Different types of creative 'tools' to experience life from a surprising perspective. A process of getting yourself in the most unpleasant postures to get what you want... This is what happened in the beginning of May.
With my 6 months pregnant belly I was resting on my rain-covered backpack on the cold ground, strapping my macro-lens to the backpack itself and lifting it to a sideways position... one millimeter to the left... one millimeter forwards... adjusting...yes, baby I feel you kicking... just one more minute.. re-adjusting... we will get there...found it! The perfect composition, just as I want it... NO, just as I need it.
A metal-like glow on the surface of a pool, not even as big as the palm of my hand... a perfect topic to create a graphic shot. The metallic glow is the result of a bacterial film on the surface of a tiny pool, located on the muddy edge of a larger fen.
This graphic shot reveals structures as if a satellite has captured the ice edge of Antarctica - the bacterial film is breaking up like little ice shelves.
Graphic shots often contain repeating patterns or smudges alike. The secret is the composition... Most graphic shots have therefore clear outlines or strokes on a two dimensional surface, as fine art coming from engraving and lithography. It's for a good reason why the patterns of nature are used as an inspiration for wallpapers, paintings, and other decoration accessories.
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| Tiny pool with bacterial film |
It wasn't exactly possible to get everything in the photograph within a plane depth-of-field... I would lose the colours which were only visible from a more lateral angle.
The really tiny waterbody that I used for this first graphic shot is close to the lake of Klompven, at Herperduin, which I also visited the year before. These kind of bacterial pools are actually quite common.
The next graphic shot that I created on my two hour walk was, as a topic, quite easy to find: miniscule fungi on a rotten tree. Again it's all about the lateral angle... with my neck curved, my right ear almost touching my right shoulder, I searched for patches of fungi that stand out in such an alignment that it just 'fits'...
I couldn't sit there for too long though, as red wood ants gathered on and close to the fallen tree. I needed to avoid getting bitten! Sometimes I am working so concentrated that I don't even take notice of it... until it's too late and I am bitten all over!
Once I left a marsh full of aquatic plants and weeds and I came out with bite marks resulting in humps as big as tennis-balls on my arms. It's still a mystery which insect had favoured me in paying me a painful visit!
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| Black and white graphic shot of fungi |
This graphic shot of fungi was originally taken in full-colour. Afterwards I decided to convert the digital image to a black-and-white photograph. By omitting colours, the contours of the fungi strike me more as graphic lines, while the fore- and background are smudged.
I then progressed on the idea of smudges in the third photograph of the series.
Smudges illuminate a whole different kind of graphic feature within a photograph. Smudges resemble the brush strokes of impressionistic art, while the graphic shot differs from this artistic view due to a small area of sharpness: the purple flower as the beating heart of the photograph.
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| Smudges create the perfect balance |
Being pregnant isn't quite handy during nature photography experiences like these. And a minute or two always stretches to a longer period laying on the ground...
This is quite the reason why I didn't take a lot of photographs lately. I do get the chance to appreciate earlier photographs that I took along the way. The purple flower is one of the few shots that I took during my pregnancy, while my child is flowering and growing inside of me... 31.5 weeks already!
The graphic shot of the purple flower shows it's gallant fragility, holding it's petals up high in the sunshine, touching it's surface, despite the haze of green and purple smudges. Just like me! It's what I do. It's what I am. Proud and genuine.
Lines. Patterns. Smudges. Colours. Gradients. Structures.
It's all about life, enjoying life and investigating new perspectives.
