ironic bluebells
I was up at the bots for a shoot with a friend, and we went for a wander before we left when I spotted these. A delicious abundance of bluebells, pretty much at their peak, with convenient paths to allow for low level shooting with minimal mucky knees!
I tried to keep in mind what I’d said before about not trying to get particular shots, just respond to what’s in front of me. It’s any wonder I managed to engage my brain at all though, because I think bluebells are one of those camera-magnet type subjects where I tend to get a bit overexcited when I see them and can sometimes barely even set an aperture!
I think this one brought out the Tim Burton influence.
The ironic part? Probably that I’m not sure I actually like these photos more than the ones I took in Curabinny. And these ones are possibly also closer to that idealistic, paint-by-numbers kind of shot that I had in mind before the whole thing started. Hah.
I was just thinking, after reading your two posts on bluebells, that the attractivity of bluebells is also in their quantity. Not only they are beautiful flowers to capture, but vast quantities of them give you the opportunity to play with the repeating subject, with DoF excercises and also with monochromatic background. And that might be one of the expectations you put on yourself, when you photograph them. You know the possibilities what could be done, what pictures could be achieved. Such temptation is very strong, because the opportunity of trying so many different techniques is hard to pass.
Or are we just biased by what we like from our own previous work or work of others?
Yep, I think there’s definitely an issue when you have a subject with so much potential, and also one where you’ve seen so many fantastic examples. I’d like to do something that feels like it’s my own, but is also good because it’s good and not just different for the sake of being different. Maybe you need an extra element in there, like unusual light or something. I’ll have tow ait until next year to try again…