Boise Flower and Garden Bonsai show prep
Hey there, thanks for dropping by the site.
If your a bonsai nut like I am, you know how much prep and planning goes into developing your trees, designing the structure, finding the correct pot, pairing the tree to the stand and all the other thousands of things that make up a composition. I could go on and on …. and on…. you get the picture (I hope).
Well, this year 2022 has been a highly anticipated year for our club, our fellow bonsai family members and the general public as a whole. Coming out of the Covid pandemic and trying to find a sense of normality has been a driving force for sure. Many within my circle are so excited to get out and showcase the years of lost time together and the work they have been doing while isolating. The bright side of the pandemic was that it allowed me time to focus on the refinement of my trees and really plan out how I wanted to display the trees at my next opportunity.
On that note, I wanted to elevate my display pieces in our bonsai show this year. I enlisted my daughter Kobie, to assist. Kobie has an incredible eye, and attention to detail and is very patient. So if she is willing to spend the time I am PUMPED to have the blessing.
We started with cleaning up the trees and detailing out the pots as they were initially reworked in a few late winter classes on this site. They were then top-dressed and were cleaned in preparation for the spring show. Minor rewiring or wire removal was done and they were all photographed to confirm what my eye sees.
I have an article that comes to mind when I work my trees in preparation for shows. It was written by Colin Lewis some time back. if you’re interested here’s a link ↓
Back to the story…….
Shooting the trees and refining the presentations. This took multiple days and as I write this article, I realized just how few photos I took of the process.
Here is an interesting perspective of how lighting and location will impact how a tree looks. This tree has been “finished” and no further manipulation was performed other than moving locations.
Photo 1 ↓ - Portu - shot in my kitchen with standard outdoor lighting from about 5 feet away…. Pretty clean image, but lots of noise in the background.
Photo 2 ↓ - same tree, shot in the kitchen with no lighting and close up. Minimal visual reference for your eye to place the scale. The tree looks much larger but still loses depth.
Photo 3 ↓ - Shot from 12-15 feet away with a visual reference for scale. terrible lighting, although the tree looks cool in this shot…… other than it is sitting on the stove - not realistic placement, you get a better perspective of size and depth.
Photo 4 ↓ - clean image, better lighting (without a formalized lightbox or black backdrop). I shoot the majority of the trees on the site with this background to eliminate distractions. When the studio is completed I will utilize a black drop-down background for better shots.
…. So….. now that you see the difference and maybe have a better understanding of how the camera benefits the human eye with the things that are out of place with our trees. I moved forward in prepping the trees for the show. Here are a few of the images.
Once all the trees were cleaned and ready, we began pairing them with their stands, the companion plants (kusimono) or the viewing stones (suiseki) to build the displays.
After all the trees were paired and ready, we had to label, then repack all of them for transport to the venue.
That’s all for his article, the next will be the actual images of the trees at the show.
Thanks for stopping by and see you again soon!
Jon