GARDEN 49 – EARLY MORNING GARDEN: BRAMBLE (MONO + COLOUR)

 

 

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A shoot from one of the dense Bramble thickets bordering our “lawns”, arcing up into the air with the hope of eventually landing on open ground and thus extending the thicket’s size; 10 July 2014.

I’m decidedly ambivalent about Brambles.  Their plus side of course is their copious fruit, the blackberry, which stains fingers, tastes delicious and takes part in all sorts of delicious other foods – jam, jelly, pies, crumbles – and the latter two with lashings of glorious custard!  And all of this, especially for a FATman, must outweigh all the negatives but, outweighed as they may be, they cannot be ignored.

First, Brambles are covered in sharp thorns, which snag clothing and easily pierce skin  – this is not a plant to be tackled with even gloved hands. 

And second, these plants are territorially voracious, and this is what is shown above.  For thickets send these exploratory branches skywards and, after climbing, they arch over towards the ground – and when they eventually land on the open ground around the thicket, they take root and so expand the thicket’s size – after which the whole process repeats itself.  A few years unguarded – by me and my pair of B&Q Value shears! –  or certainly a decade, and our garden would be completely engulfed.

This shot was originally a near silhouette of the plant against a blue sky.  Taking the image into black and white, I converted the sky to plain white, and then restored, and lightened, almost all of the plant’s colours.  A thin border serves to show the subject’s position within the frame.

D800 with 50mm Nikkor used in DX format to provide 75mm; 400 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the High Key 2  preset and selectively restoring colour.
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