Third frame, same field. This time the stems fan out like a fountain.
These dried plant stems were growing in a field in a village near my home, the kind of roadside plants most people pass without a glance. I was cycling home when I stopped, left my bike, and lay almost flat on the ground to shoot upward against the open sky, so that nothing would distract from the shapes.
The image was created using in-camera multiple exposure: ten frames fired in succession, handheld, each one shifting slightly from the last. Where the second image in this series is open and spare, this one is dense and full of movement. Thick, beaded seed heads rise in the centre, while thinner stems arc outward to the right and left like the ribs of a fan. On the left, a pale second cluster hovers behind the main stems, a faint echo created by the layering.
In black and white against a pale grey sky, the plant is reduced to pure silhouette. The texture of the seed heads reads almost like beadwork, and the long curves of the stems like lines drawn with a brush.
There is a Japanese concept, wabi-sabi, that finds beauty in things that are imperfect, incomplete, and transient. These plants are all three. Nobody planted them and nobody will keep them, yet they hold their shape with surprising grace.
This print works alongside the other two images in this series or on its own. It suits spaces that appreciate natural form and quiet observation, with raw paper, linen and unfinished wood.
EXIF data of the photograph
- Camera Model: NIKON Z 7
- Lens model: NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S
- Date taken: 22. 3. 2026
- Exposure time: 1/100s
- F-Number: f/4.0
- ISO speed ratings: 250
- Focal length: 41mm
- Size of the photo: 5504 x 8256 px
