I really shouldn’t ask that, to be honest – it’s been an aggravating month on this end at least. This is posting in the early hours of the last day, so there’s still plenty of time for September to rise to that challenge.
But hey, it’s the month-end abstract – that’s a bright spot, yeah? And what do we have for that, Johnny?
Why, it’s… more dewdrops. How many months have I been doing these abstracts, and how many of those feature water drops of some kind? Best not to look into that. But on an outing not quite a week ago, I grabbed this strongly backlit leaf as I saw it, and frankly, the detail is slick enough that I still like it, trite as it (and I) may be. I’m also pleased that the dew was on the sunlit side, which made everything two-dimensional despite the distinct shadows, and also a fleeting subject, since the sunlight would evaporate the dew within minutes, though I suppose that’s only obvious to those who concentrate on such matters. I’ll let you determine the appropriate term for such people.
That’s a crop of the original frame, so we’ll take an educational moment to examine this process. Below is the full-frame, original image:
I actually do some careful considerations when I decide how to crop a photo, and I’ll be the first to say that not everyone will agree on the choice – there is no right or wrong way of course, only what you feel is best. While this was done fairly quickly, I felt that the distinctive curving vein in the top half of my crop was a strong element and made sure that it was fairly complete, while also wanting to get a certain number of drops within and not too close to the edges, much less cut off, so the lower border was dropped to ensure that the drop at lower right was ‘in place.’ I also tend to ‘work the corners’ when cropping, having elements that go straight into them whenever possible, and I mostly achieved that on the left side. Again, this was casual and quick, because high art this is not, but when faced with exactly where to put the corners and edges, this was my reasoning. It should also be clear that I left out the large brown portion of the leaf, but also the regions where the light started bleaching out the details too much – the contrast of the shadows was important. And of course, this is the sharpest part of the frame, where focus was pinned – this was likely at f4 with the Mamiya 80mm macro, and so the short depth of field meant that both ends of the leaf were going softer since it was not flat to the focal plane. This also demonstrates that what you capture and what you display can be radically different in nature if you decide.
Meanwhile, you know what else this is? It’s the 233rd post of the year, which is the grand total of last year’s output, which set a personal record for the most posts in a year. Everything that follows is now gravy, or whipped topping, or superior hard-shell wax – whatever you like, but it’s a new record, with 1/4 of the year to go even. I am sure you’re appropriately amazed and stunned.
[Photo-wise, I think I’m running behind last year a bit, which also set a record, but you know, worrying about records is shallow and pathetic.]