Flower Box and Harbour, Victoria BC

Quick! What’s this a picture of: flowers or a harbour?

Close-up of flowers in concrete planter with harbour in background.

Umm, both? Hence the dual categorization of this photo: flora and landscapes.

Don’t you just love foreground and background? At least when both are lovely or interesting? Of course, it’s a different matter when I can’t (or, sadly, don’t think to) find a place to stand or crouch that doesn’t include some unwanted element in one of those . . .

 

This entry was posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Flora, Photos of Landscapes and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Flower Box and Harbour, Victoria BC

  1. Jim Robertson says:

    It’s always amazing of what the eye sees vs what the camera sees.

    The eye filters out so much.

  2. But not both, because the foreground demands the viewer’s primary attention for its clarity and detail. Yet, both, because the floral arrangement lacks a focal point: the eye inevitably drifts to the harbour, seeking a focal point that perhaps is hidden by the bouquet. Answering your question could become as challenging as finding hidden objects in a drawing or settling on the dominant pattern in an optical illusion. This type of tension may define the perfect standard for desktop wallpaper: lovely, but enigmatic.

    • Isabel Gibson says:

      Laurna – You make (another) good point. I think the picture would be more interesting with a single point of interest in the background. A nephew by marriage is an accomplished photographer. One of his shots is a sharply in-focus wildflower along a mountain trail, with (presumably) a slope/valley immediately behind it, and a mountain on the far horizon, just slightly softened. It’s stunning – super simple in result: All you see/notice is the single flower, backed by the mountain.

Comments are closed.