PHOTOGRAPH INFO

This photograph was taken at the Middletown Grange Fair in Wrightstown, Bucks County, the same place as the animal portraits in the previous post. The fair is a popular event that brings the local agricultural community together. There are 4,000 items entered into fair competitions, including animals, vegetables, fruits, baked goods, handmade quilts and woodworking projects.

These are some Spanish onions that won first prize in a vegetable competition. The glow of the onion skins really caught my eye in the late afternoon light, but the lens and the aperture make the difference here.

Post-processing: Shot with the Canon 85mm f/1.2L lens at 85mm, ISO 1000, shutter speed 1/640s and aperture f/2.2. Only a basic curves adjustment needed. It's alllll about that lens! :)

SHOW NEWS: Come to the closing party for my show The Value of the Land this Saturday night, August 26th, from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. at Gallery 14 near Princeton, New Jersey. Spend a lazy, hazy summer Saturday night drinking some wine, looking at some prints and saying helllllooooooooo! More info, including directions, right here.

Thank you for visiting Durham Township!

--Kathleen

Those onions really do look like winners. The color is amazing.

I hope to be able to get there Saturday evening, it sounds like fun. It will be nice to get a night out and enjoy some great company and your lovely prints!

I'm happy to see that at least somewhere in the world there are people who are interested in making the best possible produce, rather than taking the easy, chemically infested route. And you're right about the light in this shot. It is wonderfully soft and creates a very nice and quiet atmosphere.

You are a very talented photographer, and I wish I was close enough to visit your show! The onions look good enough to eat. Love the texture.

Nice composition, maybe its my monitor though but the focus seems to be a little off.

Craig: Take a look at the larger version. The cool thing about this lens is the very sharp, tiny focal area it creates at a large aperture (f/2.2 in this case) and the beautiful hazy blur around the focal area. This lens is often used in fashion photography because of that feature. Anyway, the focus is at the top of the front onion.

Great capture Kathleen; reminds me of a Dutch old masters painting. Yes the 85mm in that f-stop is fantastic. I'm a Nikon shooter myself, and recently picked up their 85mm f1.4 to go with my D200, and it's a great combination (I used the f1.8 model for a number of years, but a new camera body needs a new lens right??). Hope to put it to good use in my new start up blog.

John

This may be a stupid question, but how come you shot at ISO 1000 and there is no noise at all? is the 5D (with the 85L) that amazing, or do you use some kind of noise reduction when taking the picture?
Beautiful shot by the way, the golden glow in the onions is amazing.

This is wonderful.
I love your work -- makes me glad to live in PA also...

Just wanted to say I love that lens, too.
Lovely shot.

Adrien: Yes, the Canon 5D is that amazing! :) No noise reduction required.

I love your work. Its an inspiration to learn about photography better. You are on my daily list.

My first reponse was...God...I love that lense! This is simply beautiful. I love everything about it.

This is a lovely, lovely shot, Kathleen. And I agree, the depth of field makes the shot, as does the golden light, the weathered green wood, the brilliant blue ribbon, and even the simple paper plate that somehow adds a very human, almost vulnerable touch. Just gorgeous. Makes me rethink skipping this part of the fair. Good stuff.

actually I think this picture is a kinda boring.. If I only look at the quallity of the picture, then is it wonderful. but (I don't know if I can say this in right english, but I hope you understand it) the onions are in my opinon to much in the middle, I think it would be more tense if the onions were a little more to the left.