Lily of the Valley

[Manfred M]

I had been planning this shoot for the past week, but got busy. When I looked at the plants this morning, they were starting to look a bit sorry. I cut one of the better looking samples and went to work with it.

[Round Tuit]

This one does not work for me at all.

The setup is imaginative and the execution is flawless but... The vase is too big and overwhelms the lily of the valley which lean awkwardly. The brown thing, an oyster perhaps, with it's stark shadow clashes with the rest of the scene and the fog seems to me somewhat out of place.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the comments Andre:

It's the smallest vase that I have, so that is a bit of a problem. This is part of my series on vases, so the vase is actually the main subject and the flowers are supposed to be secondary.

The brown thing was put there for visual balance. The image looks better with it, in my opinion, than without it. I will have to try something else.

The main reason for the smoke is to provide someplace for shadows to fall and anchor the vase to the surface. Without the shadow, the vase just "floats" in space and makes the shot look strange. Again, something I need to work on.

I'll see if I can find another stem of flowers tomorrow, if not, things will have to shift to next year.

[DanK]

I've come back to this image three times.

On the one hand, technically, it's excellent--the lighting, the tonal range, etc. And the three individual pieces are presented in an appealing way.

On the other hand, as a totality, it just doesn't work for me. Andre clearly thought the subject was the flowers, as I did. Manfred, you wrote that it's the vase. But neither of those is where the eye goes. The eye is drawn to color and tonal contrast, so mine ends up on the brown shell. After that, it goes to the flowers. I never saw the vase as the subject.

The smoke doesn't particularly bother me, but I'd rather see the vase on something solid, like a tablecloth (as you would see in most classical still lives) or an interesting surface like wood (as used in a few photos by both Olivia Parker and Ansel Adams [https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auct...san-francisco]).