There are a lot of things to do with a deck. In photographs, that is. For me it has certain fundamentals of drawing with its horizontal and vertical lines. Then you have the patterning, together with certain geometric forms littering it as well as the natural growth of trees (or people) to provide a contrast.

As I have tried this many times before I decided to solve one issue (the foreground/upper ground problem) by taking the photos in vertical strips. Seven, to be precise. Top to bottom, maybe ten or so photos a stripe. This is a way to manage the fact you generally need more photos near and below you to cover 'ground' than you do for the distant elements.

I used photoshop to stitch the initial stripes though I dealt with each of these verticals in a different way. Then I took these seven items and stacked them along side each other. As I wanted a better degree of agreement between these parts than I did for (for example) one I did for the Richmond Museum I edited and sometimes worked over the edges or points of contact.

The original is quite big and would be, at 300dpi, well over six feet across. So this is greatly reduced.

When I was taking the photographs early in the morning it was that filigree of snow and branches that were foremost on my mind. A record of that temporary lace work. That textural and textile nature is reflected in the weft and warp of the bench lines as well as the decking so that worked out nicely. I can't remember if I put those dead cacti out on purpose for this shot but they are appropriate and provide a visual anchor.

At the same time I worked this one I also did a couple from springtime shortly after the leaves had budded. April 23rd if you want to know. One of them I'm not sure about and will do more stuff on. The other I like and include it below. The view is more restricted and has 'splintering sectors' of the round glass table which was initially created in a much slighter way by the stitiching program. I liked that exploding effect as the fitting of the upper section of vegetation (done separately) created a bit of a spiritual haziness to the heads and uniquely posed figures. It reminds me of early Twentieth century pictures by artists who had done a bit of reading on Theosophy and seen a couple of cubist paintings. There is a kind of a naive, hopeful mystery to it.

Winter and Spring. Sounds like a CBS buddy detective series.