Bone dry countryside, a photo from Malaga, Andalucia

Photographer's Note

Driving through Andalucian countryside in august. 40°C outside and raising, the aircon breezing at full throttle inside the car.

Why would you stop?
Why would yu suddenly care about dry plants, cloudless skies, eye blinding white haciendas and cropped wheat fields?

Venturing into landscape photography maybe?
That's how the magic of bone dry andalucian landscapes operates, under a furnace sun.

dArpAn, kensimage, thea0211, Prisley, pboehringer has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

dArpAn (499) 2008-09-28 22:02

Luko- nature's power of survival is superb- these burnt flowers are still held upwards with proud.

Your success in creating this image lies in capturing successfully the base element of the image-'heat'. I like how the heat waves have blurred the far away houses. Top shot!!!

Rgds,
Darpan

kensimage (8563) 2008-09-28 22:29

The sun beats down. The heat is oppressive. It starts to work on the brain. Soon a man becomes less rational, and starts to do odd things, things way out of character. If conditions are severe enough, he may even take up landscape photography.

But as in the famous case of van Gogh, the disturbed man may produce art. Here, for example, the dryness really comes through strongly--it's amazing the photo doesn't curl, even the digital version. I think dryness comes through because of the strong contrast you have in the foreground flower.

The only flaw, perhaps, is that in the lower part of the frame, the out-of-focus parts look a bit like digital noise (though they aren't--I should get the word "bokeh" into this somehow, so it sounds like I know what I'm talking about.) Given the delirium of dehydration, we can forgive this small flaw.

Regards, Ken.

vapours (8264) 2008-09-28 22:57

Hot dry land, with the intense blurred vision that a sweaty day can bring.

Always a bit risky posting shots like this when you've pigeonholed yourself into one particular style, but you still maintain your uniqueness through this shot.

You must have been sure of the image as well get out of your air conditioned car in 40 degree heat.

faubry (35447) 2008-09-29 1:37

Bonjour Luko, par le léger flou sur l'arrière plane nous jugeons de la chaleur oppressante qu'il devait faire ...pourquoi choisir cette plante comme sujet? eh bien quelques fois nous nous attardons sur des sujets qui nous parlent plutôt qu'un autre, nos voisins diront "il est fou", cela ne se discute pas davantage, c'est ainsi; en tout cas j'aime bien ton choix et surtout ton cadrage direct sur la plante et la maison en arrière plan;
contente de voir une de tes rares photos ici...tous partis..
à+
francine

thea0211 (1365) 2008-09-29 10:12

hi luko,
must be that i am oversensitive right now or this is really harsh ... i can almost feel how the touch of those dry plants feels.
(damn) sad shivering (?) sight (i know, i read that ... 40C) ... it comes through, you did it all right
yellow/red almost incandescent landscape ... a new sort of.
... but the bokeh is pretty ;o)
well seen!
dora

Prisley (1485) 2008-09-29 15:52

voyage initiatique en quelques sortes...forcé de trouver un sujet à photographier dans ce désert...et ben j'aime bien!
Pas évident pourtant de faire se détacher du fond cette fleur séchées au milieu d'une herbe brûlée. Belle composition. Je suis étonnée par la profondeur de champs; Je ne pensais pas qu'à f13 on pouvait avoir un tel résultat..

pboehringer (770) 2008-09-30 8:06

Luko,

interesting to see you venturing in some landscape photography. Certainly not your daily business. Nevertheless your present post shows that you have the flair for it and obviuosly coming from you it has to have a certain twist.

The first big surprise is the huge dominant boukeh throughout the entire image with exception of the foreground element - a dry flower.

The second surprise is to see with what kind of settings you achieved this result. I guess that you used the higher end of your zoom lens (focal lens 105mm?) quite distant from the flower. Otherwise you never would have gotten this boukeh starting already just some cm away from the foreground stem.

A traditional landscaper would probably have done this quite different. The camera with wide-angle, on a tripod, most close to the flower, probably the same f/ if not tighter, but the entire image sharp throughout.

Nice to see people shooting out of the box with suprising and inspiring results. Although, there is a little disturbing element in this image. The center part of the flower doesn't show any details (at least on my screen) and let me think about overexposure.

Peter

[2] +

omerozden (1259) 2008-10-05 5:35

hello luko,
your POV is very interesting. also the house and the mountain in the BG add a lot to your image.
regards,
omer

nicoz (1979) 2008-10-13 12:50

Salut Luko,
Peut etre la premiere fois que je vois une phot de Luko sans personne dessus!
J'allais dire qu'elle a une qualite "jim-harissonesque", mais vu que c'est en espagne, "hemingwayesque" me semble aussi adapte.
Une photo subtile et brutale a la fois.
Nicolas

Homerhomer (4080) 2008-10-14 20:28

superb, I actually like this image a whole lot, especially I find the results great given the harsh sun, the golden colour of the burnt fields gives a feeling of heat, but despite the sad state of the flower, I find the image to be warm not burning. There are some details on the flower, I tried to get more of them with multiply but find the bright circle to be more pleasing, more of the attention grabber balancing very well with the white colour of the house, once darkened it really lost it's appeal and balance.

Did a quick workshop, find the blue of the sky a bit dirthy, just wanted a nicer shade of blue, also a great material for bw, with or without any tints, gosh this image has so many possibilites.

Luko, I have seen your growing pbase gallery, many some mind blowing images, ... pleasure to look at.

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Bogdan (205) 2008-11-04 14:58 [Comment]

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