Dance of the Ferns

My photo for today’s prompt in the free workshop I’m taking is called “Dance of the Ferns”. At least, that’s what they told me. They’re supposed to be ferns. I’m no connaisseur, so I take this for true. If anyone of you know if it’s something else, please let me know. I’d love to learn.

Today’s prompt was about landscape photography, following the 1-2-3 rule. Here’s an example of one of the old masters, Karel Dujardin.

If you look at this painting, you can see it has a lot of depth. You’re able to see the scene has three layers to create depth. The first layer is in the front: the people and animals. The second layer is halfway: the building. The third layer is all in the back: the hills. Besides that, the painter also used a great way of contrast between light and dark, which creates quite some drama.

I have to admit, I didn’t go out to take photos today as I was occupied with appointments in my house and after that I really felt like sleeping. Knowing this would cause me troubles later tonight, I didn’t give in to that desire, but I really didn’t have the energy to go out. Especially not to the places that came to mind when I read the prompt for today. So, instead, I chose to go through some photos that I just uploaded to my computer yesterday and see if there were any 1-2-3 rule photos in there. You see, some years ago I visited the Japanes garden with a professional photographer who was just introduced to me by an aquaintance. When I showed him some of my best shots later that week, he told me my photos looked rather flat. He promised me to show me what he meant the next time we would meet. The onfortunate thing happened and the good guy died shortly after our first and only meeting. For years I’ve been wondering what could be the thing that made my photos look flat and how to improve that. When I read about today’s prompt, it all came clear to me. That’s what I should focus on, when doing landcapes. So I wondered if my last visit to the Japanese garden already provided me with at least one photo that had the 1-2-3 rule in it and nope… apparently I didn’t figure it out on my own yet. At least not with the landscape photos I took. I did find it in a close-up taken in the same garden. So, that’s my contribution for today. And I hope to get another chance to visit the Japanese garden before it closes in three weeks, so I can try to use that 1-2-3 rule and see if that’s the magic my photos were missing.

Still working on that mixed media blogpost and of course there’ll be another photo prompt for me tomorrow, so stay tuned!