Figure 1 – Flowers through a window, Highfield Hall and Gardens, Falmouth, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I took the image of Figure 1 earlier this summer and have been studying it since. I really liked the geometry of the window and the intense colors of the flowers outside. The subtle lack of squareness the slight angle of the window frame appeals to me. I am even willing to dismiss my general prejudice against flower pictures on the basis that “they are too easy.” They allow you to seize and dominate by sheer force of color. Indeed, the fact that I took only a single frame or shot at this subject is not so much a testimony to my compositional skills as it is an expression of a slight bit of embarrassment at the simplicity of the subject. I don’t want to be caught photographing flowers!

But, of course, flower photographs are nothing of the sort. They still require a demanding eye for not only color but composition. The autochrome days, where color alone was sufficient to intrigue, are long past. But, but, but the issue for me here was whether to just work-up the picture as a pure, sharpflower image or to painterize it, to saturate beyond the normal, or to add noise to the point where it becomes photo-pictorialist or impressionist. In the end I have decided on the purer form. And also, in the intense, drought-laden days of August I can remember the gentler days of July, when even rain was a possibility. The image was taken at Highfield Hall and Gardens this past July in Falmouth, MA.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 94 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/1250th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.