Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Zen of Palm Fronds


On a recent grip to Joshua Tree National Park we came across a wonderful oasis that was sort of off the beaten path.

There were a number of palm trees that had not had their fronds trimmed and I found these much more interesting than the usual well-trimmed palm.

One of the finest photography publication today is a magazine called Lenswork. Their print quality is uncompromising.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the magazine is that all of the images are printed in a brown tonality that is close to sepia. I suspect that this is done because of the difficulty of printing a truly neutral black and white image. Whatever the reason, the reproductions are beautifully executed.

I was attempting to create a tonality that was close to that which Lenswork uses. In doing so I tried the above image to see how it would look. To wit, it came alive.

A great image may be a destination, but the journey to get there can sure be interesting!