The Art of Bonsai Project

Syngonanthus chrysanthus Mikado in Horst Heinzelreiter.
Carl likes the symmetry, I do as well. ;)
Stefan

Very beautiful indeed.
At first I thought the whole composition drew the eye too much to the right side. I thought that the balance seemed to tip to the right. See the first photo below.
So I reversed the pot, thinking that the lower drop edge in the design was the cause for my perceived lean to the right. See the second photo below.
But then I noticed a slight tilt in the picture itself and rotated the whole picture one degree to the left, which brought the balance to my eyes. See the third photo below. Amazing what one degree will do to a image.
This is a well balanced composition, the movement and flow are stunningly well presented. The pot and the plants compliment each other well and the colors are neither distracting nor gaudy. This is a impressive piece.

Will

It took me a while to find an accent that would suit that pot, but when I did it felt right. It comes off clean, almost abstract in some ways, it doesn't really feel natural at all, but that's what semms to make it work.
Kind words from you, and I agree with everything you did with the composition, the flow is much improved. I need to be more precise in my placement of objects when taking fotos.
I also need some decent stands. I think a very simple low stand would improve the composition.
Stefan

Hi Stefan,
Thank you for posting this great shot here. As you know, I really like the geometric form of this one and as I've admitted elsewhere I really wish I'd come up with it.
Will's comments above are very interesting. I sometimes have to rotate my images slightly, as Will has done for yours, before posting. Here again the visual baseline helps, both with eliminating any impression of rotation that is not there, and with allowing me to see how much I need to rotate the image to get it exactly square.
One interesting thing about this image is that while there is a degree of symmetry, it also has movement, as a good accent should. The movement is so explosive that it does not need to be very far off the vertical in order to lend a strong directionality to the image. Thus the lines of this one - moving just slightly to the right of upward - are perfect.
A couple of additional notes on why this one works so beautifully. The form of the leaves reflects the form of the pot, and the leaves are shifted just slightly off-center in the direction of movement, setting up a staggered series of foci each above and to the right of the previous: pot, foliage, flower heads. The flower heads at different levels serve to tie the lower foci together with the upper, as well as creating a very nice abstract pattern for the eye to traverse.
Great work, beautifully photographed. Thank you for posting here. I'd like to see more of your compositions in the future.
Best regards,
Carl