Monday 20 February 2012

Less is More


Winter Fields, Barton Farm, January 2012, edit 5

The strange thing about working with joiners is that there is no definitive image, no 'correct' way to compile the picture. I took the photos for this picture about a month ago, and decided in the field that I would need as many cells horizontally as was needed to fully capture the row of trees, and that I would need two or three rows of clouds to make up the sky, with four rows of the ploughed field. This was the picture that resulted -

Winter Fields, Barton Farm, January 2012, edit 3

I showed a copy of this picture to my colleagues at Arena. Those that offered an opinion were very complementary, but I felt that the picture was not finished and could do with some modifications. I wasn't comforatable with the 'clam shell ' pattern that had developed in the picture. So I sent a copy of the image to my friend Noel Myles who is the most accomplished artist working in this technique today. His advice? Reduce a row of foreground perspective and probably a row of cloud.

I've done this and also reduced the width of the composite. Result - the trees have greater prominence, the field reads more realistically and the sky is more harmonious and believable.


Winter Fields, Barton Farm, January 2012, edit 5
To my eyes, Noel is right. A much better picture that read more easily. I've learned a few things with this picture, and I would (will) shoot it differently next time.



2 comments:

Mike C. said...

Definitely an improvement. It's all about the rhythm. Noel's work is very good -- I like the way he uses the sharply defined edges (e.g. to "draw" a tree trunk).

Mike

Graham Dew said...

Noel's work is really worth exploring, and it was his work, rather than Hockney's, that got me interested in this technique. He often to his work as 'still movies' and they do have a very filmic quality that tells something both real and imagined.

Graham