vegetables

January 17, 2022 • 4 Comments

The word "vegetable" conjures different things in different people. Perhaps overcooked and tasteless and "I'm not eating that" to fresh, crunchy and flavorful. As a photographer with an interest in details, I can't help but analyze both the inside and outside of certain vegetables, looking for the design, color, and patina. So just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder in my blog, I present cabbage and onions.

The outsides of cabbages are a little like a fine fabric that has pleats and folds pressed into it, radiating from the bottom along the center line all the way to the top.

The sheen or patina on this red cabbage just seems to glow in the light.

And the tightness of individual layers are pure design wonder, a little like the rocks on which this cross-section sits.

Onions - whether wild or cultivated - say "botanical" to me - with or without flowers.

Nothing like that windswept look from a vegetable.

Photographic subjects can be found anywhere, near or far, and I trust that many of you will find your own subjects this week.

Have fun!

Thanks to Jean and Sam, Kay, Barbara, Catherine, Ann A., Steve, Connie, and Ingrid for commenting on last week's blog!

until next Monday,

a passion for the image©

Keywords: Blacks Crossing Photography, cabbage, Daryl A. Black, food, green, New Mexico, onions, photography, purple, still life photography, vegetables

Comments

Dianne James(non-registered)

Daryl, you ate your subjects, didn't you? LOL I love your reminder of how intricately beautiful our food is. I grew onions last summer, and boy were they tall. I bought intermediate onion plants from Dixondale Farms and I should have taken pictures. I think they are beautiful all golden in a big glass bowl, too. We eat a lot of onions, so they're all gone, now. (Crocodile tears). I enjoyed the veins in the rocks, upon which your onion and cabbage posed. Classy. A lot of farmers here in the San Luis Valley, especially the Japanese families in the eastern part of the Valley, grew cruciferous vegetables like cabbage and brocolli. When my family lived there, I remember a huge earthen potato shed (they still grow lots of potatoes here) just south of the old adobe house in which we lived. It wasn't used to store vegetables anymore, so my parents parked their vehicles in there in the winter. The roof of it was covered with straw and soil, and approximately 20 feet high. It was so cool in the summer. The folks that built the adobe, which was bought by pioneer Luther Bean, who we just loved, were a Japanese family that made a journey back (they lived far away from here by then) and when they saw that the adobe house was still there and someone lived in it, they cried. I sat a few feet from the Sangre de Cristo Creek, where we kids 'skated' in the winter and splashed in during the summer. It was icy cold, even in the summer. The Valley thrived due to our water resources. Unfortunately people on the front range want our water, and a second fight (we won the first fight several years ago). We already have a water compact with New Mexico and Texas, who might be affected if they win. The people of Denver need to find ways to conserve and re-use their water. If little Alamogordo can water their public parks with reclaimed water, then so can Denver. They could care less about the ranchers here, or the spinach, carrot, and potato farms that feed countless people. Sigh.....sorry for the rant and the length of this post. Your whispy onion and beautiful bound cabbage care nothing about such serious things, although you and Fred, I'm sure, do. Thanks for sharing your wonderous talent with us!

Steve Immel(non-registered)

We can trust you to pick an unexpected subject and then depict it with just the right background. You're a photographer and a food stylist. Cabbages and onions lend themselves to close study since they're so elaborate. That's particularly true in the crosscut of the red cabbage. That's fabulous! The onion really is a botanical and you've portrayed it as a floral. Well played.

This comes to you from the Grand Canyon a day late since we were without internet last night in our hotel room.

Wayne Gesterfield(non-registered)

Yes, so nice.
Mother nature has sure given us a lot of beauty in the vegetable family.
Fall vegetables makes me think of the farmers potato cellars where the onions and potatoes were stored.

Sara Woodburn(non-registered)

You just have an amazing eye and the freshness of looking anew at common objects! The organic softness of the veggies contrasts so beautifully with the hard and smooth of the rocks. These particular photographs awaken my sense of touch as well. Thanks for the Monday images to start the creative week!

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