It’s so easy to be impressed with the brilliant flowers in Hawaii that the tropical foliage is overlooked. Flowers usually stand as individual subjects while foliage forms patterns. Foliage patterns call for close cropping to remove distracting surroundings. Usually there is no need for elaborate processing of the images, but sometimes posterization can be used to strengthen the patterns.

Point Lobos is a photographers garden of images: surf, coastal bluffs, tide pools, mysterious trees, sea life, wild flowers, and people soaking in the sights. We’ve featured Point Lobos in past QSA blog posts. One stretch of ocean front has rock strata sculpted by the sea. I find the sculpted patterns fascinating. There are a few concerns with lighting, texture, and composition.

Even in California there is some dead time in winter. After the long dry season it takes time for winter rains to spur new greenery. A compulsive photographer must make do with the equivalent of dried flower arrangements. On one day recently, a patch of dried fennel stems presented itself, with interesting patterns. I ended up making a faux charcoal sketch from the photo. The larger version shows the charcoal effect to better advantage. The tiny dots are not blurred out to gray.

You have a good chance of encountering bins of goods for sale when you’re traveling. They often make interesting subjects for a pocket camera photo. The photos are colorful, make interesting texture patterns, and provide something to ponder when you return home and have the time. There is more to see in the photos than you had time to contemplate on the spot.

Most often we think of a photograph as a picture of a thing, a subject. Texture patterns are photos that feature a repeating pattern, but no subject. I think texture patterns derive interest as a form of brain food. Our minds naturally want to figure out what is going on in the picture despite there being no focal point of attention. The exercise of figuring it out usually succeeds, but in the process we get to consume the whole scene.

The image fits our definition of a texture pattern, which is to say that it lacks a subject and has repetitive elements. The pattern usually fills the frame as this one does.