Taking things apart.
Above are the two separate images I had combined in the previous post. The duck is cropped to make it less central. It still feels very familiar to me this particular bird-in-flight form.
It twigged a memory of watching the herons in flight during the last days of Autumn, just before migration. It is such a different form.
[Thank you to everyone who joined in the discussion for the last post. It was very interesting!]
Š Karen McRae, 2013
draw and shoot 
nice capture of a heron flying overhead!
Thanks very much!
Terrific again Karen!
Thank you, Phil – coming from an amazing bird photographer that is appreciated. : )
Love it! Gracious… Pure art
Much thanks for that, I’m glad you think so.
I really love these images. They look to me like ink on paper.
I see, now I got the whole picture đ
(I thought, the last photo was straight shot)
Because, you intentionally composed the photo to make it looks “Typical”,
you felt it was [Kitsch] as you were so conscious about. = you created a
doubt and hindrance in your mind. It was only in your mind.
I would say again, you don’t need to be shy =
1) It was convincingly natural.
2) Graphically very beautiful —- if it was a painting, painter would
have had composed anything anywhere. Why not on photograph.
When we see beautiful image, we don’t care if it was photo or painting.
You did terrific job đ
Thanks for showing the process Karen. I agree with Yoshizen. This was a beautiful piece of art you created.
I love the picture of the heron in flight. Such a nice shape.
Hello Karen, I see much more of you by seeing less đ
I really do like the bottom/tree photo!
I still don’t think the combination is kitsch, but with my love of abstracts, I do prefer the trees on their own.
Oh herons are so very beautiful in flight aren’t they..
Whenever you have amazing photos.
AdiĂłs Karen
Carlos
hi Karen, i am new to your blog and in awe of the difficult perspective you’ve achieved with these juxtaposed images of dissolution. tony
I love the duck in flight! I feel like I have never seen this image before … It is restoring! All these pictures are beautiful! he second one is so haunting and in the third I feel like we are getting to see the mechanics of the little bird. It looks like it has jumped up! Xo
I did not comment on the first posting because it seemed you were getting more than enough, but I liked it very much and did not in any way consider it kitsch. I do recognize, however, the doubt you were experiencing. It comes to me in spades and is worthy of our attention.
SO interesting! I like both so much better alone, the mystery of the solo, groundless bird, and suddenly I see more amongst the trees now that there is no bird to take the attention. The heron is glorious, the little details in its feathers just make it complete. The comment above about the images looking like ink on paper is a good observation I think.
…only to be reunited next year! Beautiful, Karen!
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I personally don’t find any of these images, including your previous one, kitsch or otherwise. They are very uniquely you I think, and your own expression, and it translates beautifully – I agree with Elena’s comments on your last post, in that it is the sincerity in the image that shines forth – purely copying an overseen image, or falsely trying to represent something, with none of your heart involved are different matters, so also I think is to be constantly searching for something to be “new” just for the sake of it being so. We can see things again and again, but always see something new, if the artists vision is strong. I have cringed a little at some of my recent images, knowing them to be somehow seen before, but I hoped that the way that I felt about them translated, and made them somehow new – you always do that. A bird is a bird, but you make something even more beautiful and with even more meaning, and it is completely You.
How interesting to see the images separated. The shot of the trees is a beautiful, contemplative piece of work – and the lonely duck returns to that comical/ deadly serious look they have when they’re flying. Fabulous shot of a heron – so precise, like a schematic drawing but, as always, allied to poetry.
Always food for thought! Excellent and thank you.
Thanks for taking things apart Karen. I get this weird urge to crop the heron and paste him into the woods photo, like he’s going upwards between the trees. Would be a safer flight.
The bird that flutters its wings in the wintry sky is so impressive…
Great works, Karen !!
the two bird shots remind of ceramic or enamel but it is the central image of the trees that I most adore – a nordic oil painting.
For me anyway, the goose doesn’t look cliched because of how you handled it. I still like both images, and I like them combined – you do amazing work! Your questions generated valuable discussion (you must be thinking, enough already!). The GBH is great too – recently I was without camera at a preserve where they nest. I looked up to see one silouhetted against the sky, a long stick in its beak, perfectly perpendicular: so graphic.
Separated or united, I enjoy your images any way you choose to present them.
oh these are beautiful!
The creative process is so interesting, isn’t it? It shows that we all have our own (wildly different) reactions to pieces of work. We, ourselves, struggle to find satisfaction throughout the process. I really like the last image – what a shot!