Botany Photo of the Day

Please, this is far TOO abstract, and an abstract of WATER now?! There are so many beautiful and artistic abstracts of plant life - these ridiculous smudges with only tenuous connections to the plant kingdom are oh so boring. Please - back to a BOTANY photo of the day!

To get your daily fix of botany until BPotD returns to its more usual format on January 14, I recommend Dias com árvores.

Juliane - my mom taught me not say anything if I didn't have anything nice to say. Posts like yours do nothing to encourage Daniel at this gigantic effort and do everything to make him question why he does it. Ask yourself what positive things your tone and word choice really accomplish.

Absolutely beautiful. I love your traditional shots but these abstracts are also great. As a non-photographer, it is wonderful to see what can be done through a lens.

Abstracts capture some aspect of the subject not evident in classical photography. This reflection reminds me of canoeing along a river. A close up of the needles or a portrait-like shot wouldn't.

Thank you, Eric in SF, for pointing out how inappropriate the above criticism is. Given the immense amount of time, thought, work, and evident care Daniel puts into this site it is simply unkind to criticize so thoughtlessly. Besides, although the abstracts are undoubtedly a change from the usual BPotD fare, it's still interesting to see these musings on colour and form.
So - a big thank you to you, Daniel, for providing such a wonderful daily experience!

I appreciate the kind words, all.

I would only like to add that I'm not too bothered by what Juliane wrote. Sure, the reactive part of me generated a hundred snazzy replies, but the Hmmmm... How Interesting part of me said “Read and acknowledge what is written. Choose to accept it or reject it, and move on. Maybe something else is going on with the comment that you don't know about, so there's no point in drama.”

I do have a comment also. I wrote in a similar vein but I left it on the computer intending to delete censor or rewrite it for much the same reasons as mentioned above.
I find the incessant gushing and fawning offensive but I do understand and appreciate the psychological energy it provides. It does feel good to be appreciated.
So the odd jeer is refreshing.
People booed Pavarotti.

However to my mind real appreciation is more evident in the serious scientific contributory comments and contributions which say in so many words we do appreciate the effort knowledge skill competence artistry taste educational enlightenment so much that we wish to contribute to it.
But what is one to do if one has legitimate criticism. How does anyone ever find out if he is a going off on the wrong road. We are not a dictatorship here, that the boss may only be told good news. True friends will tell you when they think you are going astray.

I think we are on a journey learning botany possibly photography and if its going off course
we have a right to say so.
I appreciate also that there is fatigue and burn out and I must say I just considered these abtracts which they arent a sort of breakdown or temper tantrum. You want hard edged detailed close up ultra sharp focus pictures? I'll give you smears blurs and foggy mush.

What I wrote originally and decided not to send was that abstract doesnt mean blurry vague indefinite imprecise. It means extracted simplified essentialised restructured reorganised. It does not cease to have form shape sructure rhythm texture line.

Good art and illustration illustrates exemplifies exaggerates the essential quality and informational plenitude of the object, it doesnt suppress eliminate crush falsify it.

It is analogous to the conception of most people that free verse is rhymeless bad meaningless prose, and that doggerel is poetry. Au contraire.
Free verse is very structured rhythmic assonance organised poetry, quite analogous to abstract art.
Prehistoric art was of very high quality and it was not figurative, eg Cycladic figurines, so called geometric vases etc. Pukamani kopjafa sand painting totems. They are abstract but by no means formless.

Only syncytium is formless all other biota are very highly structured.

The modernistic bastardised sense of abstract art being incomprehensible smudges and concept and other rot...but I'll stop here.
This is a botany website not a philosophy of aesthetics forum.

Just glanced at the top of the screen`Please share your comments about the photographs. She did. It doesnt say send only accolades.

This is simply my favourite website I enjoy learning about the infinite variety of plants flowers and the intelligent and informative commentary and the lively responses which also contribute to the enjoyment and value of your work.

You may be a great botanist a superb scientific populariser which is no small feat as well as an excellent communicator and even an exemplary photographer but you are not an aesthetician. You actually knew that and predicted correctly that the so called abstracts which they aint will rub a lot of people the wrong way. They do and did and will.

However its your website and you do with it whatever you want. There are evidently a lot of people who share your taste in ahem art.
To be fair there are a million artists worldwide who paint exctly like your abstract photos and they think they are doing art.

You are doing great scientific popularising and botany here and excellent photography.

Sine ira et studio.

D OU VIENS TU BERGERE D OU VIENS TU.
I recommend the site link Dias com arvores though at first I was hesitant about it.
It's mostly in Spanish and Portugese but there are some poems in French and a few links in English for those whose Romance languages are even worse than mine.
But the pictures illustrations photos can be enjoyed even by monoliterates.

Alexander,

If you see no structure, rhythm, texture or line in this work, you need new eyes. Your assertion to the contrary, this most certainly DOES qualify as abstraction. Abstraction CAN mean "blurry vague indefinite imprecise" as long as it is actually abstracted FROM something. In this case, it is abstracted from a real-world scene, and only mildly abstracted at that. That you have such a limited view of what qualifies as abstraction, or even art, makes you the poorer. And I speak as one with a degree in the visual arts.