Ochre Cypress

You know how anglers will sometimes tell the tale of the one that got away? How even though they might head home with an impressive haul, there’s till the story of the fish that they almost reeled in but managed to wriggle free at the last second? That’s this week’s image, in a manner of speaking. It bears some similarities to other photos I have posted recently, most notably this shot of a green cypress sprig lifting itself high in the early morning sun. when I came upon the scene you see here in early March I thought it would present an interesting opportunity to build on the original, as I am often wont to do, and even perhaps improve it in a couple of ways.

I liked how the rich yellow and gold color palette were distinctly different from the greens and browns one might expect in a shot like this. I also thought the angle of the foreground, going from lower-left to upper-right, presented a somewhat unique take on this type of composition compared to what I might normally do. And finally, the burnt umber bricks of the buildings in the background would, I thought, add an enticing element to the shot. Tie it together, in a sense, much like the Dude’s rug.

Even though I did take some care and attention to create this image, in the end it just didn’t work out how I expected. When I was editing it on my large iMac screen it looked fine, but when I saw it on my mobile phone I realized the problem: the subject in the center was nearly indistinguishable from the mess of oranges and dull reds that dominated the rest of the frame. It ceased to be interesting and became muddy and confusing, and what I thought would be a decent photograph ended up being somewhat of a counterexample–essentially, what not to do.

I know this all runs the risk of sounding a bit self-deprecating, but that’s not my intent. It’s just me giving an honest assessment of the photo, and trying to learn from what worked or, in this case, didn’t work as well as I had hoped. Lots of things were fine on a technical level (the subject is sharp, the colors are good, etc.) but the overall composition just falls short of where I want it to be. No matter though, I’ll keep at it and hopefully get a better image next time!