… the rain has gone”
Last summer (2018) we had a long hot dry three months. The impact was felt all over the crop growing area of the N E of Scotland, where a great deal of the local barley crop was stunted and shrivelled. Personally it was our garden we struggled to save, taking every drop of usable water out to help the plants survive. In the cool of the evening we could be found with hosepipe watering cans … and of course with cameras too! My favourite for catching the water droplets on the plants was an old Russian Helios 44-2 lens that I found in the back of a cupboard. The lens is frozen at F2.8 but it is such a delight! Serendipity, on Flickr tells more of that story.
So here is the original shot I took of the late light catching the leaves on a miniature acer
The slanting light, the water droplets on the leaves, and the light yellow of the entire bush – they are all there. But how will it change if I take away the colour, and transform it into B+W?
I did crop the right side of the image, which brings the leaves and the water droplets closer. But the overall effect of the change, for me, is to draw the eye more immediately to the sun falling on those leaves in the foreground, and to emphasise the cast shadow in the bottom right corner. There is more light and shadow, and more sense of the sun touching the leaves in the foreground. I feel that both versions are equally strong, and complement each other very well.
There’s more on “taking the colour away” here
Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2019 Elisa Liddell
