DISC HARROW - THEME

[gary ellwein]

This is the retracted lateral wing of a large disc harrow. I pass the harrow on the way to one of my favorite birding sites. On more than one occasion, I entertained shooting this simple piece of equipment. The local photo group has farming as this months theme and the OOTB looking up or down theme tipped me over the edge. I liked the simple design of the repeating evenly spaced discs. I used a 2-lil owls white grunge texture and difference blend mode. The blend mode changed a dull rusty brown to a pleasing blue and the edges from polished silver to black.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I would have had no idea of what it was if you hadn't mentioned it Gary. Fabulous placement of the disks and I love the treatment. I just wonder about softening/blurring the texture just a bit in the ULC. Great abstract. Well done.

[Dennis Bishop]

Even though I've seen lots of disk harrows (and one of them many times while using it), I might not have figured out what it was, either. The perspective and angle of your original shot was outstanding, and the texture / blend mode combination gave a wonderful result. I'd be inclined to flip the image horizontally and heal out the two parallel lines in the texture, but I really like it the way it is.

[Kerry Perkins]

Very cool perspective and good thinking to put this into the context of the theme. I like the texture and tones, very nice.

[Kerry Perkins]

I'd be inclined to flip the image horizontally...

Dennis, I'm curious why you would do this.

[gary ellwein]

Thanks to all for the positive comments. The repost incorporates Jackie and Dennis's suggestions. The blur of the texture is not very strong.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I like the original left to right, but like the slight blur of the texture, I think it gives it more depth. Lovely image.

[Dennis Bishop]

Dennis, I'm curious why you would do this.

{flip the image horizontally . . .}

There are two main reasons, and I really can't present any authoritative evidence that they're right, but they feel right to me. I'd very much like to know if they make sense to anyone else. It all comes down to keeping the viewer's eye in the image.

The first -- and probably the stronger -- reason comes from David duChemin's book, Photographically Speaking. He makes what seems to me a good case for his argument that primary diagonals (upper left to lower right) seem "best at leading the eye in a downward and into-the-image kind of way whereas the secondary diagonal [which goes in the opposite direction] seems best at leading the eye upward and out of the image." In some images, like a rocket launch or a field goal attempt, a secondary diagonal is the way to go. For most images though, a primary diagonal probably is better.






The second reason incorporates the first but includes a lot more hand waving. Unless there's a very strong focal element (or maybe even if there is), the eye tends to enter an image in the upper left. For most of us, anyway. A photographer buddy of mine who is left-handed maintains that his eye enters in the upper right. In any case, the eye enters the image, finds a strong element, and then tends to follow lines or go to areas that have visual impact. My eye certainly goes to the light area in the top of both images, and I think that's a good thing.

In the image on the left, it follows the diagonal to the bottom. Then, it crosses to the light area in the lower left and up to the top to retrace its journey. At least that's what I think it does. In the image on the right, it probably goes from the top to that same light spot (now on the right) on the bottom. Then, it follows the diagonal. And likely leaves the frame. That's my take on it, anyway.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Gary,

Greetings. I particularly like the repeating lines of the disks.and the softened version of the texture. As I was flipping it to decide a preference I fixed a couple things to my taste... primarily lightening the upper right corner and removing a bit of the texture just in the upper left corner. I used your version (flipped) of the softened texture (which removed the 2 central texture lines that I didn't particularly care for from the OP).

As to Dennis's flip... I'll just say that it's not my experience that my eye enters from the upper left when looking at just an image (rather than looking at an image embedded in text!). In this case, I find my eye rising with the pattern from the lower middle up and I'm more comfortable with the OP orientation then flipped.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Nancy Bell]

Great discussion and illustrations of the left-to-right, right-to-left orientation. My 2 cents is it could be cultural, as how one orients to reading is how one most often looks at something. Could also be individual whether one is strongly left handed, right handed, left brain, right brain . Love the blues and the textures with the strong abstract lines of the disc. And I think I may be somewhat schizophrenic and not strongly oriented in any direction !

[gary ellwein]

Great discussion by the group. I prefer Michael's last version. Thanks to all.