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| The standard straight-on, pointing down snapshot |
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| "Bombs away!" |
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| Subject level, pointing slightly up |
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| Majoring in petunias, minoring in gomphrena |
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| A la bumblebee |
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| Subject level |
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| Majoring in gomphrena, auditing petunias |
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| A la bumblebee |
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| From below |
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| Below, grouping |
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| From below, better light on other side |
Our Passionate Observer challenge for this week was to take photos of something from unexpected angles in a variety of lighting situations and to try to reduce some images to abstract color, light, and shadow.
"When you decide you need a little color...put in a summer crop of flowers, perhaps pink petunias."
—Mel Bartholomew, All New Square Foot Gardening, page 144.
So pink petunias in my Community Garden plot in tribute to Bartholomew, who sparked my interest in vegetable gardening with his 1980s PBS show. Gomphrena globosa behind the petunias because I have wanted to grow it since I first saw it at a local farmers's market. Its uncultivated, clover-like flowers appeal to me, its fully saturated magenta not as shy as the flower form. But I want the strawberry red haageana next year.
For a variety of angles and views, I made an effort to put the camera where I usually would not, buzzing around and inside the plants like a bee. #1 and #2 are regular snapshots: distant, boring. #3 is the camera on the bed frame, almost level with the subject, the angle I use most often: something seems wrong if the camera body is not perpendicular to the ground. #4 is moving in and under to emphasize the petunias. #5 has the best light. I liked the gomphrena photos with my camera inside the plant, and I liked the composition of the three upward photos but not the light. Those photos were made at about 5 p.m., I probably should have waited for a lower sun. No abstract images from me this week, because I can't manipulate the focus of my little point-and-shoot camera, which autofocuses. Suggestions anyone?
The extra below shows how a dense planting of annuals can lift a vegetable garden, to counter the gnarly tomato stems and shriveling lower leaves. And it smells good!
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| Sungold tomatoes with alyssum, marigold, petunias, gomphrena, and calibrachoa |
