Noisy Plant Parts

Posted on by

Sometimes I crank-up the ISO as far as it’ll possibly go just because I’m in the mood for some random noise. Good times.

Also, I’m shocked I haven’t killed this plant  yet… it’s remarkably resilient… whatever it is.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Ward Abbott: “Can you really bring him in?”

Alexander Conklin: “I think we’re past that, don’t you? What, do you have a better idea?’

Ward Abbott: “Well, so far, you’ve given me nothing but a trail of collateral damage from Zurich to Paris. I don’t think I could do much worse.”

Alexander Conklin: “Well why don’t you go upstairs and book a conference room. Maybe you can talk him to death.”

– Brian Cox & Chris Cooper – The Bourne Identity

About this image: digital photograph (Canon 300D) lightly modified in Adobe Photoshop

Advertisement

82 thoughts on “Noisy Plant Parts”

  6. I like the hazy, dreamy quality to this one, SIG.

    I don’t have a green thumb either. I have one cactus that’s doing all right. The cactus needs to be replanted in a larger pot. How does one go about that?!?

    Reply ↓

    • Thanks so much, Ms. C! That’s kinda what I was going for (I think)… so I’m so happy to hear that!
      Hahaha… I’d probably result to the ‘seize pot firmly, invert & shake method’. And the ‘several layers of oven-mits re-pot’. Something tells me this is not cacti-approved!
      🙂

      Reply ↓

    • Dang! I think you nailed it, A.M… I’m nearly positive it is Swedish Ivy! I was hoping someone would help me out with that… my curiosity was definitely starting to get the better of me!
      🙂

      Reply ↓

    • Never! I’m not laughing at all! In fact, you might be right-on with that, because what it basically represents is a standard measure of sensitivity to light. In film photography it’s the ‘speed’ of film… the higher the ISO number (3,200 vs 100 for example) the ‘faster’ the film. Digitally it’s similar… only it describes the sensitivity of camera sensors to light. Faster speeds can be helpful in that they require less time to record an image (so it’s less likely the photographer will move / shake and blur the image). The trade-off is that faster also = more film grain or digital noise. Sometimes people prefer a bit of grain because it can add a certain drama… especially when shooting a ‘gritty’ subject. Plant still-life is probably not the best typical example of that, though. Sorry… I get excited about talking about this sort of thing and I tend to get carried away with it!
      🙂

      Reply ↓

      • Wow, SIG. I do believe I understand what you’re saying when you explain this to me. This is simply because you are explaining it well. I can feel the passion behind this. I hope you get to take more noisy pictures. The payoff is that it is tremendously cool! I like the noise quite a bit. 🙂

        Reply ↓

        • Thanks so much, B.F! I was hoping this made some kind of sense…
          I get so excited when someone is interested in these things that I tend to get a bit out of control with my reply! And by ‘a bit’ what I really mean is ‘a whole lot’!
          🙂

          Reply ↓

  11. “Noisy Plant Parts” had me thinking you did a factory tour. Then I find harmless vegetation. I assume it is harmless, but don’t eat it, just in case. I usually do pretty well with plants, but I put a cactus on the back porch where it got too wet, the base is mushy. Multi-layer pot holders will serve well if there are no HD work gloves “at hand.” Enjoy your weekend!

    Reply ↓

    • Hahaha… agreed! The titles over here are all over the place… just like my thought process!
      Do you do house-calls, Patti? The poor plants we have over here… I swear… the more time I spend trying to help them out the more they look like the exact opposite has happened… it’s a sad, sad state of plant affairs!
      🙂

      Reply ↓

    • Thanks much, Deb!
      And it’s always my pleasure! I just wish I could come up with words that are more fitting of the wonderful work you are doing over there! I think I need to invest in a thesaurus!
      🙂

      Reply ↓

    • Well… I always do way too much in post processing, Madame…
      trying to remember… here I think I did some…
      conversion to b/w, overall levels (tone) adjustments, selective levels adjustments, duotone tinting, sharpening, slight vignette, etc…
      you should see the abuse I throw at my more ‘heavily modified’ images!
      🙂

      Reply ↓

  17. The title reminded me of when I did some tree pruning the other day on a tree in our front yard that was way overgrown. I always imagine them screaming as I saw & secateur bits off. Maybe I’m just weird???

    Reply ↓

  20. Noise has been my very worst enemy. If I’m not shooting at ISO 100, I feel like it’s not even worth bothering with. But then I saw some really purposely-noisy photos on Society6 the other day, and the non-noisy photos next to them looked so BORING. I approve.

    Reply ↓

  26. This one looks a bit washed
    out, but in a very good way 🙂
    There is a a kind of sponging
    effect going on too, which is
    a nice touch my great friend 🙂

    Have a brilliant
    rest of weekend 🙂

    Androgoth

    Reply ↓

    • Thanks so much, Andro! Good call, sir… the light end has been pushed very far… and I’ve lifted quite a few of the mid-tones up as well. Sponging is a very good description, too – I was hoping that the combination of these things would be interesting, so that is a wonderful thing to hear, my friend! Thank you again!
      🙂

      Reply ↓

      • I think that we should be thanking you for all of these excellent offerings you are treating us to, I like how you push the envelope on these projects and the results speak for themselves SIG 🙂 Your style and uniqueness always adds to the quality here and in my way of thinking that just shows what a great artist you are so, thank you SIG and keep up the wonderful work that you are doing 🙂

        Androgoth

        Reply ↓

        • Man, Andro… I just can’t get over how incredibly generous you are with your remarkably kind comments! Every time I think you’ve said about the nicest thing possible, you find a way to humble me yet again by saying something like this! Thank you so very much, my friend… I sincerely appreciate your great support… sometimes I find myself scratching my head about it all, and things like this really make the whole silly thing seem worth it, somehow! Thank you again, A.G… very, very much!
          🙂

          Reply ↓

  29. The week-end has come and gone already??? I love the washy look of timelessness in this SiG, and if you ask me, the noise adds a nice touch of gentle shhhoosh to it, not forgetting a valuable lesson from the master!

    Reply ↓

    • It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?! Time flies seems like an understatement some most times!
      You are far too kind! I know just enough to make a mess and/or get myself into trouble, but thank you very, very much all the same!
      🙂

      Reply ↓

    • We’ve got these glass blocks in our bathroom that let in some pretty incredible light… of course that means doing some ridiculous balancing acts over / around fixtures… but sometimes it’s worth the unintentional Yoga.

      Reply ↓

  32. Nothing like a bit of cranked up noise to add interest – works well for urban alley shots too 🙂 Nice idea Bob – like the pinky-grey and white too 🙂

    Reply ↓

    • Thank you, Martin!
      Agreed… if it helps anywhere, noise often seems to compliment gritty street photography so well! This almost seems like the exact opposite… a case where I’d normally be shooting at ISO 100… sometimes, though… I don’t know… I must have been bored. Or sleep deprived.
      🙂

      Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s