And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Mt 6:28)

Consider the lilies of the field Original

Central Park Meditation

There are days which linger in the memory more than others and this one became fixed in my heart for its quiet beauty, as left a museum on the upper East side and strolled on a warm, windless, late Autumn day in Central Park. I was attracted by the stillness of the water, the reflections of the trees and the peace of lilies floating among fallen leaves, to photograph this moment. I then sat and pondered the why and wherefore of the beauty of things for a while, not knowing that I had another gift waiting for me, once I returned home.

Viewing it on screen, for some reason, the mirror-like stillness of the reflections and the tension of the water at the rim of the plants and in their centres reinforced my sense of the symbioses, balance and purposefulness of creation. The opened flower seemed to be the final element of satisfaction in a mysteriously beautiful process, while the bud pushing out of the water in the upper centre promised further wonder.

Tribute to Raw

This image required rather more post processing than would be appropriate for a well-exposed original because it was born in difficult circumstances, being hand-held at 1/15s on a lower-end camera body. Enter the post-processing machine, in this case Nikon Capture NX2.

I cropped it a little, to add some dynamic concentration on the lily pad and then experimented with the contrast, brightness and colour saturation until the image “popped” into natural colour and clarity. Because of the technical limitations, some noise reduction was also necessary, so in this case sharpening needed to be rather aggressive, due to the original slow speed and the impact of noise reduction.

The Original

Here is what I started out to develope.

Consider the lilies of the field Original

Settings

Camera: Nikon D70

Lens: 18-70mm zoom f/3.5 G

Focal Length: 52mm

Focus Mode: AF-C

Autofocus Area Mode: Single

Aperture: f/22

Shutter Speed: 1/15s

Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority

Exposure Compensation : +1 OEV

Metering: Centre weighted

ISO Sensitivity: 640

Hand held

I hope that the peace and the natural gift of beauty that this memory of a contented moment recorded in a sweet image works for you too. Theimage is for sale in the prints section of the website on  http://www.photeinos.com/p544507831#h949e7e0

Copyright Paul Grayson 2014