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.

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.

Pomponio Beach is featured in a previous post about a gray-day panorama. Beaches are good places to find texture patterns. The margin between sand and conventional grasses is often home to an interesting assortment of plant life.