Friday, May 8, 2009

Black Tea, by Kanjiro Okamoto.

Just for the sake of publishing a nice image: 'Black Tea' bred by Kanjiro Okamoto of Japan, introduced into commerce in 1973. Its a Hybrid Tea, upright, stiff and rather awkward, with plenty of flesh-ripping thorns. Not a particularly good garden rose, it is grown for its Cinnamon/rust/Chocolate colored blooms which are notoriously difficult to photograph. (This photo doesn't quite get it right, but close) This is one of the so-called "brown" roses, an elite group that has become popular within certain circles in recent years. Click on the image to see a larger version.

This photo is specially for Carolyn Parker, whose photography is always inspirational. Check out her exquisite book entitled R is For Rose.

Coming soon: photos and description of one of my favorite selections from the cross of 'Joycie' X 'Fortune's Double Yellow' made in '06.

3 comments:

  1. Nice rose, and brings up a point I was hoping to make on my own blog: that it is notoriously difficult to get rose color correct in a photograph, but you can come much closer in a drawing.

    Basye's Purple, for me, is a great example. I've never seen a photo of it that comes anywhere close to what this rose really looks like. Photos usually show a funky red or dark pink, but the rose I see literally sparkles in every color from red to violet. I always passed it by on the basis of photos, and finally bought it because a friend told me it was a must-have.

    I've been thinking of making drawings of my best hybrids, to put beside the photos on the SRR website. So far, I don't have anything that looks all that different from the photos, but still, the photos do lack a certain je ne sais quoi.

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  2. No camera I know, either film or digital, can capture many of the reds and purples of some flowers. Its just the nature of our imaging technologies. It will undoubtedly improve in time, but for now, it has its limitations.

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  3. This is where the magic of Photoshop comes in ;) I don't have a problem with using it either because IMO it's no different to using the traditional dark room tricks to create different effects (like dodging and burning etc). So long as you stay true to realism and don't try to make it something it isn't I see it as being a positive thing instead of digital trickery. I hate it when you see brochures or online photographs of things like 'Blue Moon' that actually look blue *shakes head*... that's just obscene to me... but making up for the short fall of digital or film colour rendering is a perfectly legitimate process IMO. Lovely photo by the way. I've taken the plunge Paul and started my own blog now... I have a feeling it's going to be kind of random though... I was thinking I might do a series of photography how-to posts some time to help people take lovely shots like your own :)

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