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When we first arrived at Cam Loch the sun was directly above Suilven. Some half an hour later it finally dipped below the hill to the right casting an intense warm glow onto the mountain which was rendered in almost full silhouette due to the high dynamic range.
For Smile on Saturday!:-) The theme this week is Egg-cellent
Photo: my own / texture: Topaz Simplify
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
Hans Hofmann
Please don't use my image's on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Chinese gardens are constructed to recreate and miniaturize larger natural landscapes. Traditionally, Chinese gardens blend unique, ornate buildings with natural elements. Just about every Chinese garden contains architecture, like a building or pavilion; decorative rocks and a rock garden; plants, trees and flowers; and water elements, like ponds. Most Chinese gardens are enclosed by a wall and some have winding paths. Chinese gardens aren’t just thrown together. Instead, they’re deliberately designed and visitors should walk through them in the particular order that the garden was laid out.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship (simplified Chinese: 谊园; traditional Chinese: 誼園) is a heritage-listed 1.03-hectare (3-acre) Chinese garden at 1 Harbour Street, in the Sydney Central Business District, City of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Modelled after the classic private gardens of the Ming Dynasty, the garden offers an insight into Chinese heritage and culture. It was designed by Guangzhou Garden Planning & Building Design Institute, Tsang & Lee, and Edmond Bull & Corkery and built from 1986 to 1988 by Gutteridge Haskins & Davey; the Darling Harbour Authority; Imperial Gardens; Leightons; and Australian Native Landscapes. The gardens were added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 October 2018. The Chinese Garden of Friendship was designed by Sydney's Chinese sister city, Guangzhou in China. Sydney's Chinatown complements the area's already rich in Chinese heritage and culture. The garden was officially opened 17 January 1988 as part of Sydney's Bicentennial Celebrations and named the Chinese Garden of Friendship symbolising the bond established between China and Australia. 14913
I have written about how Marc's changing needs have dictated a need to simplify our garden. Greater attention is needed to care for his declining health, which means less time in the garden and sadly, less desire by Marc to access it.
I have reduced our borders and the number of plants I grow and returned planting beds to lawns. Over 90 rolls laid. I have raised the canopy of many remaining shrubs and trees so Marc can see through them more easily from his vantage point.
There is much more to do, but gradually.
"Our life is frittered away with detail. Simplify, Simplify."
~ Henry David Thoreau ~
Thank you French Kiss, For the text brush.
Complex simplification
Man I’ve struggled to write this text. It’s felt like digging a hole from England to Australia. The first few spades full were effortless as I enthusiastically threw them over my shoulder, but the hole quickly became very deep and then I hit ROCK. Now the task of finishing the job has become very daunting and if I’m to continue, it’s going to be slow and arduous. So…I’m going to start this with a paradoxical conclusion, then offer some alternative perspectives on digging …but first the conclusion, “simplicity turns out to be rather bloody complex!”
My messy mind
When photographing in a location, I’ve often observed how my ‘state of mind’ influences the way I see world and engage with it. Now this is a massive topic and I’d be foolish to attempt to cover it here, (man it looks very dark in the bottom of that hole). But more recently, I have observed whilst in the most peaceful locations, ‘self imposed artistic ideals’ creep into and distort my particular view of that reality. These thoughts can be very productive when wanted, but sometimes have become irritants when not, placing unattainable expectations of ‘perfection’ of light subject and composition over what is essentially reality.
To experience a ‘beautiful’ location in ‘perfect’ light is indeed, very special but, ‘the very act of photographing’ the location is further introducing complications on how one engage with any given scene. Often, (even without the camera), instead of enjoying the view, I have a sometimes (self diagnosed), irritating tendency to scout for locations, attempt to second-guess the weather, seek out detail, light and foreground interest. When I do have the camera (if I’m honest most of the time when in these locations) and feel inspired to take the tripod off my back, I’m often racing the fast moving conditions, setting up equipment and looking at the world through the viewfinder.
So why is this a problem you ask? Isn’t it your intention to seek out these locations and try to convey some of the feelings you have in a photographic representation? Well yes, but it’s those very ‘feelings’, that are being distorted by the process, that I want to experience as ‘pure’ in order to attempt to convey. I’ve noticed that often I actually ‘see’ and ‘feel’ more for a location when viewing the ‘image’ some time after its making, when I’ve have had time to reflect, things have slowed down and I’ve allowed my mind to dig deeper into the image and location. Unusually I see and feel things that I didn’t when I was making the image, which is bizarre, as you would think that being there in the flesh enables you to see more, but the opposite seems to be true. I would speculate that on location, our senses can become overloaded and the previously mentioned reasons, all influence the unique filtrated perception of the location.
I do believe that we in fact absorbed the overlooked information, somewhere deep in the subconscious mind, but it is only when reflecting on the imagery later that we begin to process the mechanical representations disentangling the thoughts, laden them with significance, and produce feelings. The photograph then seems not only to be historical record of the place we were. But actively catalyzing the emotions surrounding the experience, digging not only into the very place we were making the image, but deep into the recesses of our memory and dragging out past seemingly tenuously connected feelings.
Now all this mental clutter isn’t necessarily a problem, I suppose it depends on how you choose to look at why you were there in the first place. I do however wonder why we naturally filter out that information? I wonder if we simplify it because we cannot possibly process it all to satisfactory levels whilst there (it that just me?) maybe I need a few more slots of ram, or a better fan on my processor.
But seriously I feel analysis of the seemingly natural way our brains simplify any given experience into manageable chunks, offers us some incite as to a method of improving the ‘power’ in our photography.
A compositional tool that distills meaningful elements
The world is a complex place and the act of photographing it has a tendency to simplify our view on it. By choosing to narrow down the subjects, condensing the third and fourth dimension into two and directing the viewers attention onto a particular representation, is offering us an illusion on reality. A distorted view that has been manipulated by the photographer’s actions and thoughts, in a vague representation on a perceived, often overlooked reality. There is a common misinformed perception that photography is truth, but I digress.
If you use landscape painting as a convenient comparison and I’m thinking of artist such as (turner), the simplification of any given perception on reality, enables the artist an ability to distil the multitude of sensory data coming into the mind and focus on presenting only the ones that communicate the desired message/feelings they want to convey. The very act of rejecting elements is in fact paradoxically focusing deeper ones attention on the remaining.
When a shot is simplified, to clear compositional elements, the smallest details can possess greater power. A simple curve can become an overriding factor in the way your eye moves around the presented landscape. The shape and flow of that line, then has to be of impeccable clarity to retain its power. We as viewers linger longer on smaller elements, expecting and actually extracting more from them. The accomplished photographer, then, has primed the work for the viewer, without them even noticing. The ability for a photographer to expose us to the simplified view is then showing us that they are able to creatively distil the elements; it revels to us that we are looking at a skilled practitioner.
When looking at a successfully simplified photograph, I often get some sense of my eye moving over the scene in a controlled manor. It’s almost slowing the viewing process down and highlighting subtle nuances. The experience forces me to really LOOK at the image and draws my attention to normally overlooked elements. Playing with the juxtaposition of these simplified elements has in it hints of ambiguous purity, and when successfully accomplished it’s a powerful viewing experience.
It is also catalyzing a meditative state
We all seem to lead busy lives these days, attempting to squeeze multitudes of tasks and experiences in. Don’t get me wrong I’m the first to admit cramming my free time full of the things I want to do, places I want to photograph, (doesn’t the weekend wiz by), but are we not missing something along the way? It seems to me trying to reach out to wider and wider locations doesn’t necessarily mean greater rewards, as the essence of each place is being overpowered by its very complexity. Slowing down, concentrating on the elemental, gives the experience more depth. Letting your senses see, taste, smell, feel what it is that you’re doing enriches the experience. (For me that is).
Please don’t make the assumption that I’m arrogantly stating this is the only way to enjoy photography, because extracting pleasure in whatever form, is a respectable goal. But it is my intention, no, ‘need’ to dig deep, push my mind into new and uncharted territory, because I thrive on the unpredictable, and looking into oneself through the implementation and reflection of my photography, it’s definitely not simple but incredibly rewarding.
Glassblowing experience was one of the highlights of a family visit this week. This was one of the bowls. The joy was further extended by placing this on a light table and photographing it.
Sunrise on the Laratinga trail. A willow tree in a small creek. A touch of Color Efex glow and Topaz Simplify added in post.
Willows are not a native tree species to Australia but do often make a great .photo.
Like a great poet, Nature knows how to produce
the greatest effects with the most limited means.
~ Heinrich Heine
Our life is frittered away
by detail.
Simplify ,Simplify
Im pretty flattered i just found this in my emails ,my second image beeing published .
Hi Valeria
Congratulations, your picture was published in our “Wall of Fame” section of the magazine.
"Le persone dovrebbero mettere altrettanto ardore nel semplificare la loro vita quanto ce ne mettono a complicarla." Henri Louis Bergson
Saremmo tutti molto più felici se mettessimo in pratica questa idea... :)
Nella foto, dal mio archivio, una composizione minimal, con un cielo screziato di bianco ed un ramo. Che altro? :)
Buona giornata
Twin Waterfalls.
探索領土想像力野生重要宇宙尋求願景旅行藍調誇大深層事物,
забавни зелени модифицирани жълти различни впечатления магическа северна вечност трайни илюзии променливи сили,
simplifications arrangées liberty's écrit illuminé poèmes mois paresseux belles eaux piercing étés fleurs,
amhránaíocht siombalach soláthairtí radhairc suibiachtúil míniú airgidí éifeachtaí foirfeachta abhcóide glómhara pineanna móra,
amintirea primăvară mare natură stomacuri respirație mare meditații prospețime strălucitoare copaci strălucitori excitare emoțională,
أزهار لا تحصى تستفسر من الطيور تتسلق أيامها ليالي فاترة تميز الرياح بالهدوء التام,
nā māmā e hoʻonani ana i ka mahina i nā hōʻailona hōʻoluʻolu i nā kahawai momona,
栄光のカップを埋める珍しい素敵なエアフラワーヒューム明るい橋華麗な神社の漁師の遠足有利な花びらがキャッチ捕まった.
Steve.D.Hammond.
Te Aute, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
I was watching a video today by a well know photographer showing how mist and fog can simplify an image by blocking out the distractions, and it reminded me that I have a whole lot of photos that I took in the mist one mid-winters morning that I have never shown, or even finished processing. So I thought I would finish one
Flower.
This started out as a picture of a rather interesting flowerhead on a plant at the Royal Botanic Gardens near Toronto, taken in 2017.
I have no idea of what it was, but it was full of patterns and lines. So, good for filter play!
The approach here was to turn in on its side to create a false horizon and then to process it in Topaz Simplify, which is an interesting filter that reduces images to areas of colour delineated with coloured lines. It's a super filter for using as a basis for photographic painting, and is one of my favourites for Sliders Sunday playtime.
My original intention today was to go further and produce a kaleidoscope version for the group entry, but I rather preferred this intermediate stage (I'll publish the mirrored symmetrical version as well - see www.flickr.com/gp/141477116@N03/56v673).
I'll post a link to the in-camera original so you can see how far we came.
Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image! Happy Sliders Sunday :)
[Handheld in daylight.
Developed in Capture One for colour, especially the magenta/red in the flower and the green stem. Rotated 90 degrees.
Sharpened with Clarity and a slight general hue shift before processing in Topaz Simplify, using one of the Buzz presets as a starting point, and then tweaking to get lots of detail and noticeable but not overbearing lines. Simplify tends to increase the saturation and colour vibrancy in a lot of the presets as here.
Back into Affinity Photo for a bit of Unsharp Mask and Clarity sharpening and a bit of selective colour channel hue shifting to introduce the oranges at the top. That was about it for this version :)]
I have been studying the rocks at Hele Bay and have found their sheer detail is overwhelming. Not matter how faithfully I try to reproduce them, it doesn't transfer well into a drawing; so I have decided to abstract and simplify things down with smudgy pastels in my sketchbook.
Hele Bay rocks looking toward Ilfracombe.
Pastels in sketchbook
This was taken from one of the trails in Killarney Park, I can't remember the trail name, but it was the one focused on Georgian Bay. This is the sun's last light hitting the landscape from a nice viewpoint on the trail. I was a bit late to do the entire trail before sunset, and the rocks on the trail were a bit hazardous and, added to that, it would be easy to get lost on this trail in the dark, so I headed back to the car after the sun went down. 75 second exposure.