Into the Garden (Path/Pathways non-entry)

[ConsAreLiars]

I haven't participated in contests for a while, for a variety of reasons, but when a theme is chosen it gives me a chance to look through my pics and wonder which I would choose. Here is the one that I think I would have chosen to be included in that group of very nice photos. It is also an example of a photo where jpg compression really doesn't work well, since there is so much highly textured area, and jpg compression is most efficient where transitions are gradual and smooth. Those algorithms were optimized for portraits -- See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG for more than you ever wanted to know about the details. This version is too large (in bytes) for the contest, but still looses the detail of the flowers in the foreground. To make it fit the guidelines I would have reduced it to 650 pixels or so in the long dimension in order to keep it from getting too fuzzy, but this is a not-bad reduced version of the original.

Maybe others who have not entered the contest, or have other photos they thought about entering, might want to also post their "Paths/Pathways" non-entries?

Into the Garden


(edit title)

[superconnected]

1. Ah that photo reminds me of up by monte cristo on mt baker.

And you just made me homesick to go walk through that - what's in your picture.

very nice shoot. It evokes a feeling in me and that's my main meter for wheter I consider a picture great or simply well taken.

[ConsAreLiars]

5. It was taken in the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic Nat'l Park

Bright overcast, with the light coming through the break in the canopy.

The PNW rainforests always feel like places where nature is whole and life's is-ness can be felt. When hiking, the richness of the world we walk through usually unfolds bit by bit, but this was one of moments when "everything" about that place seemed to reveal itself at once. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[F.Gordon]

2. I love that

Tread softly... slowly. Love how every element of nature is part of the "path". You should have entered it... but doing so with the idea that you might very well have "won".

[ConsAreLiars]

8. The risk of winning is, for me, one of the main downsides of the contest

format at the present time. I enjoy showing my pix, but I have the unfortunate tendency to put things I like doing ahead of things I "must" do, and putting one more time-consuming thing that I both "must" do and like to do ahead of others on the "must" list doesn't seem like a good idea at this time.

Another factor is that I enjoy seeing others' fine work being acknowledged and getting some applause. Even if the lizards are totally insane, the work being submitted in the contests is of such good quality that a random selection would still end up giving one or three of us some well deserved applause. Yet they do, somehow, manage include some of the best in their top picks.

I do feel this photo shows a bit of truth about our world and out place in it, and the slide when projected just glows. Getting that same effect through the scanner, etc., onto a tiny webpage jpeg was a challenge, and I'm glad it seemed to have worked. I have another favorite - a waterfall shot - that seems impossible to reproduce. I project the slide to 4X6 feet and look at the fine detail in the log at base of the falls, and then realize that that whole log will measure 3X50 pixels or so on a web page. Oh well, the overall image is nice, but that level of detail is impossible in this format. This photo (as reproduced here) had some of the same challenges, but I'm happy to think that the message got through.

[Mz Pip]

3. A couple of my paths not taken

Path to the lake



Into the woods



Mz Pip
:dem:

[ConsAreLiars]

7. Thanks. There are so many ways to "see"

and present images that show pathways, as those photos illustrate. It is a very "inspiring" topic that helps us look at what we often just see.

[JeffR]

4. Would have attracted votes like a porch light attracts moths

The color is astounding, and the composition reads beautifully from top to bottom and vice versa. Wow!:wow: That's really a gorgeous photograph, despite the effects of jpg compression. Sorry this didn't appear in the contest, but it was great to have a chance to see it here.

PS - Since I've had paths on the brain recently, here are a couple I shot yesterday:

[ConsAreLiars]

6. I think the real benefit of the contests is that it gives us all

an incentive to begin looking at aspects of our world a bit more attentively. One of the difficulties of making photos in forests is that the lighting is often very contrasty, particularly when sky is included. I grayed out the bright sky in that picture, but wanted to leave it in because I felt it was part of the whole story.

I like your photos - they show a peaceful place. You might want to look at them again with all the sky cropped out. I think doing that helps the viewer see what you saw more easily.

(edit - because it's always something)

[JeffR]

9. Very good point - it's a chance to see what we otherwise might not

Even though it's right there in front of us. I can only wonder what Surrealism as the theme would have elicited from everyone, but perhaps its time will come.

Couldn't quite figure out what Into the Garden put me in mind of before, but it finally came to me: it's Magic Realism.

Good point, too, about contrasty lighting. So much of the appeal of shooting in the woods is that the light is different every few feet in any direction, but that makes each photograph a whole new challenge to capture. Your cropping advice is smart - I'm going to try them that way.

[TahitiNut]

10. "The Path Not Taken"?

[JeffR]

11. Excellent

Where was this taken?

[TahitiNut]

12. Nam ... Early 1969

It's a scan from one of the slides in my (small) "collection." (I think it was Kodachrome in an Asahi Pentax, iirc.)

[JeffR]

13. That's what I was assuming

Very powerful image.

[TahitiNut]

14. Thanks. It seemed so to me - begging to be a photograph.

All the elements seemed just right. The skies in Nam were often drop-dead gorgeous (so to speak). The barbed wire and dirt were everywhere we were. The medics were people we looked up to ... like "angels"? Together, these elements seemed emblematic. I even like the fact that the people really aren't recognizable - faceless angels of mercy.

I didn't bother putting it in 'path' competition ... since the connection is so abstract and because I just don't do well (or even respectably) in thse contests. (It doesn't stop me from appreciating the emotional impact of the photo - but surely that's largely due to personal experience and remembering taking it.)

On top of it, my USB interface to my cheapo digital is FUBAR - and I can't transfer photos until I figure out what's wrong. (sigh)

[JeffR]

15. The emotional aspect for you would be unique

But me with my tattered and ultimately affectless 1-A draft card still in my wallet after all these years - well, it gets to me too.

[Mz Pip]

16. Fix your USB!

and enter the contests! I just entered my second and did well (I'm in the finals!), but even if I hadn't done okay, I enjoyed the competition since it gave me other perspectives on the same theme.

I've been doing photography for years and in the past two years have been pursuing it more "professionally." I'm glad I have the time to be more involved and am glad I found this group on DU.

:hi:


Mz Pip
:dem:

[superconnected]

18. jeffr, Stunning!

Thanks for sharing!

[JeffR]

19. Jeez, thanks

It's one of my favorite spots in the city, a deep ravine I used to live half a block away from. These photos really don't do it justice, but thank you!

[ConsAreLiars]

17. "After the Garden Is Gone"

I suppose most have heard this song from Neil Young's Living With War album. For months now that music has been running through my head, not constantly, but often, and it was what I was thinking of when when I named the picture. Here in the Pacific Northwest this image is one that, for me, represents The Garden, and what we see being murdered. Underwater coral reefs could have the same meaning elsewhere, or cypress groves, and so on.

Anyway, just on the chance that people haven't listened, or have forgotten, and to give proper credit, I wanted to plug this song (and the rest of the album, but this song in particular).

Go to http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/index.html . It's the first track on the album. A link at the top right is to a short video on the rehearsal process. Further down is a "music video" of the whole song with video from Gore's film, and further down a link to listen to the whole album, starting with this song.

(and there's a whole lot more on that site)

[ConsAreLiars]

20. Another non-entry.

Toward the Light

[regnaD kciN]

21. Well, I was ineligible for this contest...

Even so, looking over my collection, it surprised me how few shots I had with paths in them.

Had I been eligible, I probably would have picked one of these:

The Rocky Road to Bridal Veil




Enchanted Pathway




Winter Tracks




Lost Path

[ConsAreLiars]

22. They all would be "contenders"

My favorite is the first, nature lover that I am, but the stunning color in the 2nd might have been lounge favorite (ooh, bright shiny things!). The landscape might be the best seller in a gallery - another case where the loss of detail in a web image means what we see is less than what is there. The B&W - maybe just my love of color biases me - seems the least effective, but on my monitor it seems there is a large are of "too light" in front and the dark areas in back are to dark and undifferentiated - but again, the web image may be a poor copy.

[regnaD kciN]

23. Actually, the problem with "Lost Path"...

...is that I stink at doing B&W conversions. ;-) (It was rather hard to convert, since the photo was taken at midday, and has lots of bright colors in it. Since I wanted a downbeat feeling, I had to remove the color, but that left it with lots of middle-high gray tones. I'm sure I'll eventually hit on a channel mix that gets it right, but I'm not there yet.)

BTW, can you tell where that photo was taken? I know you're familiar with the area.

[ConsAreLiars]

24. I guessed it was somewhere along the tracks and spurs

along Airport Way in the industrial district, with Beacon Hill (my 'hood) on the left. Did the appropriate search on the phone number and got a validation of that guess, but using Google Maps the satellite view didn't look quite right. Maybe they moved a few blocks north since then? I'll have to check out the current address to find out. My prior job had me driving a hundred feet above that location, and in my current one I drive down from Beacon Hill a couple miles south.

Maybe post some of your photos that you'd like to convert to B&W, like this one, as a challenge, and ask people to explain their techniques for doing the conversion. It is something I've never tried, other than simply setting Saturation to zero, but it might be fun.