Wednesday 23 March 2011

Contrast 4

Smooth and rough.

Smooth, smooth as silk, smooth talking, smooth to handle versus rough, tactile, hard, rough and tough. Smooth makes me think of cream,things slightly overdone, things that maybe are not quite what they should be. Rough is less polished, possibly more violent.

All of the above is musing on words - and not very helpful in pinning down images. This one came as I was walking down our street. It is a pile of old scaffolding tubes that have been left outside. I am not at all sure I would trust my life to them anymore.

19.5mm, f/3.5, 1/60 sec

and this was an accidental shot as I was trying to do something else but when I looked at it both the glass and silk background felt  'smooth' to me.
ISO 400, 45mm,f/16 2.5sec

Neither of the images were 'planned' but both show the contrasts that I was looking for. Lessons learned - keep a camera with you all the time and look at accidents before you discard them, (this one was actually much better than any of the planned images).

Contrasts:
  1. rough and smooth
  2. indoor and outside
  3. new and old

High and Low.

Concepts here include a high viewpoint (looking down) versus a low viewpoint (looking up), high in the air or low on the ground, high church (very ornate) against low church (simple and plain).  High also means lofty, elevated, towering, high pitched, superior, excited and distinguished. Low means near the ground, depleted, muted, muffled, sad and depressed. Again a very large number of possible meanings and interpretations.

Here I have illustrated the simplest of the possible contrasts: high

ISO 640, 45mm, f/7.1, 1/20 sec
and low
ISO 100, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/13 sec
On looking further at the pair of pictures they could also be reversed  as the trees are wintry,  and look plain and possibly could show a low mood, while the snowdrops are cheerful and a sign of hope and spring approaching - therefore a lift in spirits.

This shows that images can be looked at and interpreted  in many possible ways so even the most apparently straightforward one may mean something unexpected.

Contrasts:
  1. high and low
  2. winter and spring
  3. dead and alive
  4. old and new

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