A picture is worth a thousand dreams. It is, as the common saying goes, worth a thousand words too and so I won't contriubte any more words to this post.

Nicely done Deepak. You must be really enjoying this phase of exploring your cam and lenses. :)

By  Anonymous, at 2.9.05  

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Nice!

The first one is an opium-aided Coleredgian dream, and the second one is a normal dream? :)

By  Ink Spill, at 2.9.05  

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Hey Avis, loving it so much that I wish I could do it for a living :)

Hey Inky, first one is a lens-assisted dream, and the second paint shop pro assisted dream.

By  Deepak, at 2.9.05  

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Deepak, generally ppl don't cut stalks of flowers since that's the interesting portion. A long narrow winding stalk adds a lot of beauty. Flower pictures themselves are as cliched as babies or the sunset...but a unique stalk can still stir up interest.

By  Anonymous, at 2.9.05  

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Why on earth would someone deromanticize that pretty flower in paint shop pro like that? :-S

By  Anonymous, at 3.9.05  

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Prologue
Ah.. what do we have here.. two Anonymous comments. Let's see.. for the sake of clarity, let me address them as AnonymousI, and AnonoymousII. Pardon me if they sound like droid names, but by leaving me no names, they've left me no choice.
End Prologue

Hi AnonymousI,

The stalk here, though a little small, is still intact. For the purpose of this composition I chose to leave it at that. A little lower and other flowers in the nursery would have obtruded into the frame; not quite what I desired. There are other pictures that I took where the stalks are not only long and winding, they are a prominent part of the overall composition. I shall post them in a day or two.

As for clichés, for someone who is merely beginning to explore his camera's (and his) capabilities, all subjects hold infinite interest. I am also being pragmatic here - as Georgia O'Keeffee once said - "I hate flowers - I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move." Ok, I don't hate flowers, and I click them not paint them, but you get the general idea..

That said, I sometimes enjoy clicking flowers in the most done-to-death manner - petals, pollen et al, face on. For the simple reason, that I am always amazed by nature's choice of colors. I've seen two colors, that are disparate (and perhaps in circles where discretion is considered a virtue, they'll even be considered gawdy) look good on a flower. Colors, of combining which, I would never have thought. Looking at those pictures later, teaches me how to pick colors for some of my other creative pursuits (that involve a visual medium). But yes, I'll spare general public most of those pictures :-)

Another word on clichés. Given then photography has been around for a while, what is not? Portraits have been done before, ditto for wildlife, landscapes you name it. And now, given the proliferation of digital cameras, all they has conventionally not been a cliché, will soon be! But does one stop exploring these subjects? No way :-)!

Hi AnonymousII,

Oh.. I think I had romanticised the flower by tweaking it.. The latter has stronger saturation of red color and the background looks much starker - almost colorless. Of course when I say "Romanticise" I don't mean it in the "mush mush" sense, but in the 19th century Romanitc movement; and the later, from my understanding of the movement, fits the bill. I am willing to be corrected though :-)

By  Deepak, at 4.9.05  

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Romanticism = Blake/Wordsworth/Coleridge/Keats/Shelly/Definitely not mushmush as far as my comment was concerned. These very verbose people were beginning to see the ills of city life and were lolling about in the greens watching the colorful flowers...I despise them too much to give links.
Modern Poetry: TS Eliot talking of cats licking yellow fog in gutters and flowers sitting in vases...more like the second pic. :) (ok. exaggeration.)

Inky/AnonII/Lazy cow

By  Anonymous, at 4.9.05  

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Hey Inky, I was implying "romanticism" in the musical sense. One of the highlight of the romantic movement in music was the tendency to "exaggerate" emotions. Consider this passage that I quote from encarta:

"Similarly, if the sound of a particular instrument seemed especially attractive during the course of a symphony, they might write a long solo passage for this instrument, even though the solo distended the shape of the symphony"

so I was merely exaggerating the rouge, or "writing" that "long solo passage" for my flower :-)

By  Deepak, at 4.9.05  

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