Jade Tree Abstract

[Richard Lovison]

Here's a bit of weirdness from yesterday. I was experimenting for the memorial day macro challenge using my macro zoom at the widest aperture (4.5). I ended up taking images completely out of focus... I know Julie, it kind of defeats the whole point of the challenge. :) What can I say... I'm a doofus. :)

There's a story behind this jade tree. I was a caretaker for a museum dedicated to Albert Schweitzer for 10 years. Part of my responsibilities included taking care of the plants in the guest house. When the museum closed its doors in the late 90's, board members went through the house and took what was precious to them. All the house plants were taken except for one jade that I found discarded in the trash. It was kind of scrawny though I took it home and cared for it. It's still going strong after 11 years.

http://richardlovison.com/photos/jade.jpg

So I guess it's back to the drawing board to come up with something to submit that has some part in focus at f4.5. I won't be able to prove what I've done as the lens is an older Olympus OM lens that needs an adapter to work with the E-3 and thus the camera will not register the lens nor f-stop in the exif data.

Olympus E-3
Vivitar Series 1 90-180mm flat field zoom at 180mm
manual exposure - 1/1.3 sec @ f4.5
ISO 100
hand held with image stabilization on

[Bruce Murden]

May be OOF, but you are on to something here. It has a different emotion in this abstract state -- dreamlike, and impressionistiC. Sort of like some of the work of Freeman Patterson and William Neill. A technique worth exploring. The only detail (pun!) that I'd like to chagne is the brightness of the white blobbiness in the UL, which pulls me too much in that direction.

Interesting method. What's next, and OOF challenge?

[Julie Kenward]

John, we'll trust you on the aperture for the contest...don't worry about it! I do really like this. If you haven't already, you should head down to the Out of the Box forum and go through some of the blur images down there. Some of them are absolutely remarkable!

I think this is very nice as presented but could also see you chopping about a third off the top and creating a pano crop out of it, too. And nice story about the jade plant...sometimes the throwaway plants are the ones that grow best with a little water and some TLC.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Richard, nice soft abstract look. Like the color and highlights of white.