A Rose Is a Rose
But a sharper lens is good, too
Yesterday’s photograph of a rose was taken with a lens that was at one time my very best macro lens. It’s a true macro lens, the Schneider 150mm Makro. It’s made for industrial close-up work, such as scanning parts accurately.
Today’s rose photograph was made with a different lens, the Nikon 100mm lens that was pulled out of a Nikon Scanner. The level of sharpness and rich color in the Nikon lens are beautiful, and it is becoming my strongest and best macro lens.
Not every shot needs to have the ultimate in sharpness; yesterday’s rose photograph shows that. It lacks the fine detail of this one, but…it’s still got subtle, beautiful color. The photograph above has even richer color, and even greater sharpness, and each has its own charms. But the extra detail is more life-like, and the softer detail is more graphical, more like a painting.
Well, I’ve come to think of it, that the best art be it a poem, a song, a photo, or a painting, or whatever. It reveals something about the true nature of the person even though other people may be unaware of it. It’s almost as if the best art is produced when the person is honest with themselves about the art that they’re producing, and it may be conscious or subconscious I think.
It helps reveal the nature of the flower in contrasting ways. Scientific yet artistic. The mass is revealed but so is the beauty. A sort of crossroads photo. I like it.