Tin Goose tomatoes

[Dennis Bishop]

After watching this tomato (on a potted plant) ripen, I waited for a still morning to photograph it. The image was made up of 18 shots -- three bracketed shots at six focus-stacking intervals. Six wasn't enough; I wanted the background out of focus, but not those foreground leaves. After it was processed, it reminded me so much of an old fruit crate label, I added the text and the plane. The plane is a Ford Tri-Motor. They were nicknamed the tin goose, and coincidentally one fully-restored one and one partially-restored one reside at an airfield about ten miles away on the Marblehead Peninsula in Ohio. Blue Goose Growers of California was one of the companies that shipped fruit in crates with colorful labels in the first half of the last century.

Nikon D3s, ISO 200, f/5.6, three-exposure HDRs at 1 EV intervals, 105mm macro lens

processing highlights

• Zerene Stacker -- focus stacking
• Flypaper Texture -- a blurred layer replaced the non-tomato-plant parts of the background
• Topaz Simplify -- saved watercolor preset
• Alien Skin Snap Art -- saved watercolor wash preset, Color blend mode, 33%
• Flypaper Texture -- Linear Light, 33%
• Fractalius -- three saved black & white presets, Multiply, one masked, various opacities
• Snap Art -- saved Stylized Line Art b&w preset, Multiiply, 23%
• Simplify -- saved b&w edges preset, Multiply, 60%

[Paul Lagasi]

You have just to much time on your hands Dennis

A lovely piece of art you've created, would be a perfect business card for Tin Goose Tomatoes. Thanks for workflow, nice work.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

This is just plane fun.:) Well thought out and executed. I love the reds and your signature style of processing.

[Diane Miller]

What a wonderful image! I can smell and taste them! (And I challenge anyone younger than 40 to know what a tomato used to smell or taste like!)

The Trimotor is a very cool plane! Glad to see you have 1 1/2 in your vicinity. There are more around than one might expect.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Dennis, this is a delicious image I love your artistic merging of the plane/tomato/packing label idea. Your workflow on this one is perfect.

[Randall Farhy]

Dennis, this is outstanding. I could easily see this image printed full bleed on tomato boxes, used for posters or print media. I love how you pushed the BG back and brought the foreground in through the use of focus stacking, something I haven't given much thought. This also has a strong sense of design and color balance. While I can't make the connection between the "Company" name/ Logo WRT product, I do enjoy the whimsical play on words. Great piece!

[Dennis Bishop]

. . . While I can't make the connection between the "Company" name/ Logo WRT product, . . .

Randall, I can only make a reasonable guess of how the company name happened. I've seen that inspiration seems to come most often when I'm very relaxed. The name happened while I was taking a hot shower. At the time, I new I wanted a name, but I wasn't really focused on it. For years, I've been a fan of ephemera. At one time, biscuits, crackers, and the like were displayed at the general store in large wooden boxes that usually had a large paper label on the front of the box and inside the hinged lid, which would be raised so customers could pull out the product. I used to have a large collection of those parts of the biscuit boxes hung on a wall. While I never had a collection of fruit crate labels, I've always liked them and was aware of the Blue Goose ones. For some time, I've known about the Ford Tri-Motor tin geese on the Marblehead Peninsula. That's where we were most of the summer and where we grew the tomato plant. Sometime before I stepped out of the shower, some neuron fired, and I had the company name.

[Anita Bower]

The Tin Goose label and saying are making me smile. Clever!
I want to eat this tomato.
It does look like a high-quality fruit label. The processing works really well. Beautiful shapes, colors and composition. For the image to be perfect, the foremost tomato would also be red.
I wish I had your patience in processing. I tried focus stacking years ago, and was too impatient to make it work. You got great results.

[Dennis Bishop]

. . . For the image to be perfect, the foremost tomato would also be red. . . .

Strange as it may seem, that's one tomato, not two. I don't know why the front part is so different, but that's primarily what made me grab my camera in the first place.

[Diane Miller]

That greenish tomato (or half tomato) is what first caught my eye. I love it! Tomatoes on the vine in their various stages of ripening are so interesting.

[Anita Bower]

Strange as it may seem, that's one tomato, not two. I don't know why the front part is so different, but that's primarily what made me grab my camera in the first place.

Oh, now that I look closer, I see that it is one tomato. It seems I'm the odd woman out this time.

[Diane Miller]

Dennis, I just got the new Williams-Sonoma catalog and the cover features a dinnerware pattern that reminded me strongly of your tomoato design. It's a pumpkin, but I think next summer they should do a tomato. Seriously -- you could sell an image like that!! VERY seriously!

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/produ...-NoFacet-_--_-

(Hope the link comes through -- it looks kind of odd.)

[Dennis Bishop]

Thanks, Diane. The link worked just fine. I don't know if I'd want that pumpkin design on dinnerware. Maybe so. However, I really like it as a piece of art.

It's funny that you should mention selling an image like the tomato one. The Ford Tri-Motors on the Marblehead Peninsula are housed at the Liberty Aviation Museum in Port Clinton, Ohio. The name of their diner is the Tin Goose! I found out about the museum not long before we returned home and didn't have time to visit it. However, I did email them asking about photography and tripods. I also said I'd be glad to provide them with digital copies of images. The person who replied said they're okay with photography and tripods. He thanked me for the offer to give them photos but said, "Thanks for you kind offer, but it is not necessary as we have several staffers and volunteers who are shutterbugs and provide us with many photo opportunities as reflected on our Facebook, and website." They have a gift shop called the PX. I decided, when I do go there, I might just bring my iPad along and see if they want to sell Tin Goose tomato ads there.

If I were on the Marblehead Peninsula year-round, I'd probably be a volunteer at the museum.