This is one of the light box compositions I’ve made using the glorious spring weather in northern California since I’ve been home from Spain!

Petals on Parade © Harold Davis

Composition with Delphinium and Poppies is a good example showing one of the organizing principles I teach in my Photographing Flowers for Transparency workshop and my books. The first premise is that there needs to be an organizing principle in a light box image (or in any photograph, or any image, for that matter!).

Composition with Delphinium and Poppies © Harold Davis

Taking the idea that one needs a compositional organizational principle as a given, it is then possible to create a taxonomy of possibilities. These include roughly circular, spiral, color field, another kind of color field, horizontal panoramic view, vertical panoramic view, leading off the frame, crossing the frame, and more (an example of each is linked). I’ve even essayed a paint-splatter effect with flowers!

This image (the Composition with Delphinium and Poppies) epitomizes what is probably the most common botanical organization: relying on a single, unifying stalk, in this case the delphinium’s, underpinned by the distinctive delphinium green leaves.  You can find many examples of this organizing principle in my work. 

Of course, the poppies don’t really belong attached to the delphinium stalk, and for literal-minded folks who notice this might be a distraction. But for a general audience, from a compositional viewpoint, the literal truth of the real world doesn’t matter so long as the composition looks holistically plausible.

One other point is that this composition is built around a strong diagonal. The entire delphinium leads the eye up and out to the right of the frame. It is important in this style of composition to have directed movement of a portion of the composition that contrasts with the more static elements (the poppies). It’s also worth noting that I photographed the image with the delphinium pointing up and out to the left, and reversed the direction by flipping the image horizontally in post-production.

What joy to come home to my family and garden in Berkeley, and find spring still in bloom! These are two Papaver rhoeas—corn poppies—from our garden. I photographed each on a light box, and then inverted them in LAB color. You can find some info on these techniques in my website FAQs, and there will be a great deal more in the new book that I am working on!

Papaver Rhoeas 1 Inversion © Harold Davis

Papaver Rhoeas 1 © Harold Davis

Papaver Rhoeas 2 © Harold Davis

Papaver Rhoeas 2 Inversion © Harold Davis

The variation between specimens from the same flower cluster is pretty amazing: each flower is different, just as every person differs from each other, even when there are close genetic similarities!

From the median strip of nearby Arlington Avenue we clipped some branches from a beautiful, blooming apple tree. Arlington Ave is too busy for my taste, and one has to be careful of cars zooming by when one does this clipping business, but some of my best photographic subjects have come from this location—such as this cherry branch, and this blood-drawing thistle.

If you look closely, you’ll see a patch of lichen on the lower left of my light box arrangement. I particularly like this touch, because I feel it adds apparent verisimilitude to the composition.

Apple Blossoms Daze © Harold Davis

Apple Blossoms on White © Harold Davis

Apple Blossoms on Paper © Harold Davis

Apple Blossoms Inversion © Harold Davis

Oxalis is a modest plant, considered more weed than flower. The Oxalis shown here is Oxalis stricta, also known as yellow woodsorrel or sourgrass. In season, this Oxalis grows in profusion around here in vacant lots, underneath trees, and on hillsides. It’s quite edible, and great for chewing on with contemplation. When I am in “human cow” mode and chewing on my cud of Oxalis, it is pleasing that sourgrass does not really live up to its name. It is not sour, at least not so much.

Oxalis A © Harold Davis

Oxalis B © Harold Davis

Oxalis C © Harold Davis

Related recent images: Street Grasses, Decorative Grasses, and Blades of Grass.

Thanks for participating in my previous request for comments on Decorative Grasses and Blades of Grass. Today’s Which variation do you prefer? And, why? involves six images. What these variations have in common is the subject matter: the same floral arrangement was photographed in each.

Four of the images involve different processing of the full composition, with a version on white, an inversion on black, a version with a virtual “frame,” and a woodcut-like black & white version. I have presented these images as verticals.

The other two images, shown as horizontals, involve closer-in captures, with a different (stronger) magnification.

Which do you like best, and why? I particularly appreciate comments entered directly on the blog story (the comment box is below, or follow this link!). Thanks.

Color Field of Flowers on White © Harold Davis

Color Field of Flowers on White with a Deckled Edge © Harold Davis

Inverted Color Field of Flowers © Harold Davis

Black and White Field of Flowers © Harold Davis

Flower Friends © Harold Davis

Papaver Nudicaule © Harold Davis

Yesterday we decided it was time to do some spring planting so I would have flowers to photograph and so our garden would look pretty. We came home with a few bulbs, some poppy plants, and a red anemone. Of course, the first thing I wanted to do was to photograph a red anemone flower blooming on our small plant on my light box!

Red Anemone © Harold Davis

Anemones are named after the mythological Greek spirits of the wind, because of how nicely they bob around in a breeze.

If you love anemones as much as I do you might like to check out some of my other anemone photos. Here are some other anemone images of mine: An Amazing Amalgamation of Anemones; Anemone Fun; Anemones; Core of the Anemone; Anemone on Black; White Anemone; Anemone Japonica.

These images of course go back a number of years. You can see these and more via a keyword search for “anemone” on my blog!

Star Magnolia—magnolia stellata—is one of my favorite flowers. In the past I’ve photographed magnolia stellata for transparency here, as an upright branch, and as a light box panorama.

The two photos in this story are made in the field. I photographed these new stellata blossoms on location down the block, with the idea of contrasting the center of each flower with the softness of the stellata petals.

Magnolia Stellata B © Harold Davis

Magnolia Stellata © Harold Davis