ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 42 – ONE OF MY WIFE’S ORCHIDS (MONO + COLOUR)

The single remaining flower on one of my wife’s orchids; 18 Sept 2013.

This plant enjoys the sun in our living room window and, while the rest of it has some substance, there is but this single flower left on the end of a long, long branch.  I’d looked at this bloom and seen its Minimalist potential – while realising that I’d have to get my act together fast before it withered and dropped off like its comrades.

So this morning I mounted an upturned laundry basket on top of two chairs, and precariously balanced the plant on top of that  – praying that it wouldn’t fall off, leaving me to explain away the resulting carnage (“But really, it could have happened to anyone …”).  I set this motley pile up in our dim hallway, so that the front door’s net curtains would provide a bright and completely out of focus backdrop.

The shot does not exactly portray reality but it is what I had in mind beforehand – white backdrop, black branch with paler scars left by the other flowers that have dropped off, and a quite high key rendition of the sole remaining bloom.  As always, SEP2 has done the job.

Technique:  tripod-mounted D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 240mm; 200 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2, using the High Key 2 preset, and adding a thin black border to provide separation from the white background of my blog.

ARCHIVE STILL LIFE

This is a new category on this blog – Archive Still Life studies.  The Still Life definition will certainly be followed loosely – e.g. some studies may only have been made “still” by the split second opening of the camera’s shutter – and my objective will be to use as many different types / genres of subject matter as possible.  Some images will be Minimalist and, in general, I try to make simpler images, rather than cramming them with visual content.

Some new Still Life studies will (hopefully!) continue to appear.