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Final series:

An index of colour and corresponding numerical values from the flowers in my mums garden.

I edited the backgrounds again to make them more consistent accross the series and clone stamped out some areas of discolouration that I hadn't noticed before.

Making the index for the colour values worked well I think it makes the images more interesting. Instead of just using the colour values of the dominant colour for each plant I found the colour values from several areas of the plants, such as the petal and the stem or the different colours on the petals, as a means of gathering more data.

Im really happy with the clean layout, the colourful aethestic, and the use of index in this series, as well as its relevance to the brief of photography as data. The series also works really well together by being uniformed and covering a wide spectrum of colour in gradient order. Im stoked to have these as my final images.

Roni Horn's photographic series of The River Thames, titled Still Water, is my precedent for making an index for the colour values in my plant kit shots. Her simple layout and use of number labeling will work well with the clean, ordered design of my images.

I've edited the same images from the last shoot so that they are whiter and brighter by adjusting the white balance in the levels on photoshop. Now that I've seen them all next to each other I can see that the backgrounds aren't all even so I'll have to go back and try to make all the backgrounds the same and without shadows.

I also slightly rearranged a lot of the specimen in photoshop to make the alignments straighter and more evenly spaced. I may take this a step further and remove some of the specimens to make all three images look more similar to each other.

Finally, I have gone back to the idea of labeling the plants, but this time in terms of colour. I thought an interesting way of doing this, rather than using names of colours, was to use the colour picker tool on photoshop to find the numerical colour value of the dominant colour in each specimen and to label it with that.

Although some fine tuning needs to be done, I'm really happy with how these images have turned out as a series. My next step is to attempt to make an index with these images and the same data to see if that produces a more interesting result.

Categorized by colour in three parts: blue - purple, pink - orange, yellow - white.

These images are much more organized and the layout is more interesting that the previous shoots, while still focusing on organizing the specimens according to colour.

Had a go at doing the rainbow gradient again but making it neater. I feel like the layout is really boring so I'm going to try again and make it more interesting, like my first shoot.

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I also experimented with video by photographing each flower individually and using cross fades to make each flower merge into the next through the colour spectrum. After playing with different speeds and editing techniques I didn’t find the end result particularly interesting so I wont use it as my final.

I have experimented with categorizing by colour a little more by taking a sample from every flower that is currently in bloom in my parents garden. The 2nd and 3rd image are of the same flowers but ordered by colour and then by size. I like the visible colour gradient in the first image but the layout was not as clean as in my previous shoots. I think my next step will be to again take one of every flower in the garden but lay it out more cleanly, and perhaps taking apart the flowers before laying them out so they all appear more uniform, making the gradual change in colour from red to white more obvious.

Looking at Sophie Calle's Chromatic Diet reminded me of the "breakfast geometry" I put on Instagram every now and again. These kinds of patterns, or organizing by colour like Sophie Calle, would be an interesting way to extend this project of studying and categorising various plants.

Other images from the microscope shoot. The effect of the extremely shallow depth of field, as well as the insane detail able to be seen, were the most interesting elements of these photos to me. I am not yet sure if I will use them, or where to go from here.

I was able to use a microscope that takes photos at the ecology department at Massey University. I took an assortment of specimens to examine more closely. These are some of the more abstract images from this shoot.

Image 1: grass bamboo stuff

Image 2: those white flowers

Image 3: the fox glove looking things

Image 4: Pollen of the cherry blossom

I left the pink and green arrangement for 3 days before returning to document it in its dying state. I thought incorporating the use of labels as found in ecology diagrams would be an interesting path to pursue, so I wrote out their latin names onto pieces of old brown paper, but was underwhelmed with these results.

My final images from the first shoot. Using clean layout to categorize and document a variety of specimen based on shape and colour.

Categorizing by shape and colour. Seeing similarities across different species.

Image 1: Something, rosemary and Forget-Me-Not

Image 2: Something, something and Cherry Blossom

Image 3: Magnolia, something, something

Image 4: A Lambs Ear plant, taken apart.

Pulling some flowers apart, putting others back together in new ways.

I think both of these photos are uninteresting and not pathways I will pursue any further for this project.

Contact sheet showing a selection of layouts I tried during my first photoshoot.

The clean design and tessellated layout that clothing brand 'i love ugly' use has inspired my first shoot, where I will apply a similar style of layout to assorted botanical specimens in order to display and study them.

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