Nelson Water Gardens and The Brookwood Community

I mentioned in the last post that going to Nelson’s Water Gardens in Katy and the Brookwood Community in Brookshire would be a nice change of pace. It was, with a very big HOWEVER. Isn’t there always a BUT or a HOWEVER? Changing the location of a photoshoot can change the way a photographer sees but with me that is the exception and not the rule. What I came home with is not that far removed from my Walls and Walks project or any of the randomness photos that I frequently take. I am not implying that I did not enjoy the change of location, I was just surprised that what I saw was not all that changed.

I simply love finding textures, designs and capturing them photographically. I guess my one big departure at Nelson’s was color. There are a number of potted plants and it was obvious that someone had made an effort in several cases to match the colors of the blossoms to the background. I also noticed this in a few of the garden bric-a-brac on display. It was like having a knowledgeable art director prepare the set. As I have mentioned several times, I am not a flower photographer and many of the photographs that I took on this trip are less than crisp because I was shooting very close up hand held—not a good combination for sharp photographs. Of course, when did I ever worry about sharpness or color?



I ended up shooting a lot of the stones used in the walkways, a lot of the textures on the water pieces and surprisingly a number of photographs of the insides of the large containers.

For a non flower photographer, the highlight of Brookwood was lunch. However I did do a few flower photographs. Again they are soft but hopefully the composition or treatment will overcome their deficiencies.

The one thing that Nelson's did add to my usual fare was color. I found a number of cases where I could still do my texture or design photographs using very bright colors. In hindsight I wish that I had concentrated more on color and possibly less on the water features. The places where the water separated from the pieces photographed beautifully but unfortunately where the water was just a sheen on the surface it reflected the sky and photographed as a muddy gray. That was something I had not anticipated and I am finding it difficult to overcome with post processing.

In all it was a great day of photography.  I came home tired and that means that I was out doing something with my camera.