Today’s flat light didn’t bring much inspiration. So I went out only when daylight was fading already and I could expect the street lights to be switched on soon. Their bokeh gave the twist I was looking for to these old, dried efflorescences.
In her comment to Warm yellow, Martina asked: “what is it with bokeh that is so nice?”. My gut-felt preference for those airy disks and blur would not make up for a good answer. But considering the special techniques photography has, and their difference our human vision perceives a field of view, I think both items, airy disks and blur, make a big difference. When the eyes scan a scenery, focusing to the different planes happens very quick and usually without a decision, so these artifacts will be eliminated usually before they reach conscious recognition. The only situations where they might get recognized by the eye are stress or overload situations: reflections of lights on a rainy windscreen at night, glistening sunlight on a rippled water surface: Then for a moment those artifacts will stay as the eye simply does not find focused and therefore prioritized items to replace them with.
But for my photography, the gut feeling of course remains the decisive factor.
Sometimes a dim light can offer interesting results. This is a good exemple.
Here the dry plants and the delicate tones of the lights fit really well together.
@philippe: Yes, as soon as you have overcome the equation photography = bright light, a whole new world opens up. To be honest, as a working person living in Europe, this is your only chance if you don’t want to restrict your photography to the weekends.
wow … your eye for those things is marvellous!
This is so pretty against the play of lights.
That’s funny — I was thinking these days – having seen your photo of the bank on Monday: How does he get inspirated these days? No light, grey sky, raining. Yes, I am living in this “photography = bright light” world, ;-). The only thing I could manage the last days was a feather on a twig against the grey sky. I simply _do_not_see_ !
Usually at this time of year I start experimenting indoors, doing macros of the things laying around in the house, playing with lighting, lamps etc. etc.
Did I mention that this photo is very nice? Might it inspirate me, 🙂