Water lily garden: another try at impressionism

[DanK]

This is a shot of the water lily garden at the Clark Museum in Williamstown, NY. I was recently introduced to ICM (intentional camera motion) and have been intrigued by it. This was shot at 200mm, 3/10 second, f/32, with an ND 4 filter to allow me to slow things down. (No reason to avoid a small aperture in this stuff--a little diffraction can only help!). C&C welcome, as always.

[Round Tuit]

Interesting.

[TonyW]

This looks good to me. There is a nice lot of structure in it to produce an interesting composition. At least you haven't got that over sharpened look that happens in many pictures like this.

When I tried something like this I found it hard to get the timing right so that the picture was in the right place when the shutter opened but you have done well.

[Ziggy]

This looks nice to me. Seems like the subject matter would have a lot to do about making this type of photo work.

[bnnrcn]

I like it a lot Dan If the flowers were purple and pink instead of white , the image would look more Monet-like. Nice work.

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[DougR]

Very nice Dan. I copied and played with saturation and hue and the possibilities are infinite.

Thanks for the inspiration.

[Mike Buckley]

Great job, Dan!

[DanK]

Thanks, all. Binnur, coincidentally, the Clark has a large standing collection of impressionists, and I was there to see a large temporary exhibit of Van Gogh. I wonder about the purple. Over here, there are three colors of water lilies: white with yellow centers (very common), pink (rare), and yellow (also rare). The pond at the Clark had a mix of white and pink. I have never seen purple, but perhaps in France...

[IzzieK]

How beautiful is this!!!! I love it...something to play with one day...

[JohnRostron]

An intreaguing shot. The grass stems appear sharper than the flowers. Was this a by-product of the exposure time? What was the source of the lack of shahrpness? Was it natural vibration or was it artificial?

John

[bnnrcn]

Hi Dan You are right about the purple . In Monet's waterlily paintings ,the water is purple (lavander) not the flowers and that's why I'm mistaken Here is one of the paintings to see the color of the water.

http://www.abcgallery.com/M/monet/monet146.html

Thanks, all. Binnur, coincidentally, the Clark has a large standing collection of impressionists, and I was there to see a large temporary exhibit of Van Gogh. I wonder about the purple. Over here, there are three colors of water lilies: white with yellow centers (very common), pink (rare), and yellow (also rare). The pond at the Clark had a mix of white and pink. I have never seen purple, but perhaps in France...

[Mike Buckley]

If you Google purple water lilies, you'll see plenty of them for sale.

[DanK]

An intreaguing shot. The grass stems appear sharper than the flowers. Was this a by-product of the exposure time? What was the source of the lack of shahrpness? Was it natural vibration or was it artificial?

John

John,

The camera motion was intentional. If you google "intentional camera movement," you will see a lot about it. It even goes by an acronym, ICM. A nice posting about it is this one by Juergen Roth.

In this case, I moved the camera vertically (rotating on a ball head), which is why the vertical stems appear clearer.

I am a novice at this, and I need a lot of trial and error. Even once you figure out how much motion will work for a given shot--I had too much in my first tries at this one--it isn't easy to get the right amount, since you have such a short time to do it. I use an ND filter to allow me to use a longer shutter speed.

Dan