Patterns: Tea Estate

[Sabyasachi Patra]

A study in patterns.

The lush green tea bushes look like a lawn from a distance. In South India, the tea estates have shifted to cutting the tea leaves instead of picking the soft leaves. The reason given was that the labour cost has gone up and picking the newly sprouted leaves is a time consuming affair and the tea estates can't afford it. In Darjeeling and Assam, they still pluck the leaves. Ofcourse, the taste is much superior and the price commanded is more.

Wish the tea estates move towards natural pesticides instead of the synthetic pesticides and fertilisers.

Some of these tea estates are no longer viable, due to falling yield and lower prices. And the lease terms of a few estates are going to be over. I hope those are converted back into forests through natural and assistive regeneration.

Canon EOS 1D Mark II, ISO 200, f13, 1/80 second, full frame, handheld.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Dr. Kalpamoi Kakati]

Light seem to be bit harsh,as it has washed away the soothing lush green colour,which is usually seen in Tea gardens.In this case colour looks very dull to me.I guess the image has been over sharpened as well.This kind of images look good ,when captured in the morning or evening hours.:0

Kalpa

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I agree that morning and evening light looks good for photography. This image was clicked at around 2.30 pm in overcast conditions.

In case of landscapes, the shadows due to side lighting often adds to the depth of the image.

I am uploading the screen shot. No sharpening beyond the default. Only on rare occassions, I do sharpening beyond the default amount in lightroom. If the image lacks details, then it is trashed rather than sharpening. You can see the settings at the bottom right. Infact, I haven't done any processing to the raw image, as can be seen from the screen shot.

You may have seen green tea estates in Assam and nearby areas. They handpick the buds. This image shows cutting of the leaves as if like a lawn. Also, if you observe closely, there are more yellow leaves, than green. The colour is as true to the original. One can increase the saturation to make it more green. However, that would not be faithful to the original.

By the way which browser are you using? I guess it won't be firefox.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Dr. Kalpamoi Kakati]

I agree that morning and evening light looks good for photography. This image was clicked at around 2.30 pm in overcast conditions.

In case of landscapes, the shadows due to side lighting often adds to the depth of the image.

I am uploading the screen shot. No sharpening beyond the default. Only on rare occassions, I do sharpening beyond the default amount in lightroom. If the image lacks details, then it is trashed rather than sharpening. You can see the settings at the bottom right. Infact, I haven't done any processing to the raw image, as can be seen from the screen shot.

You may have seen green tea estates in Assam and nearby areas. They handpick the buds. This image shows cutting of the leaves as if like a lawn. Also, if you observe closely, there are more yellow leaves, than green. The colour is as true to the original. One can increase the saturation to make it more green. However, that would not be faithful to the original.

By the way which browser are you using? I guess it won't be firefox.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Depth of field is OK.One need to have ideal condition to get best out of a landscape.As a candid shot,it is a descent one.Colour would have come out better,had it taken in an ideal condition.Increasing the saturation a bit during PP is not a bad idea.I usually use either Internet explorer or google chrome,and sometimes firefox as well :).Trash should not be the correct word to react to a criticism,what do you say?.btw you have not mentioned about the lens that you have used in this image.Thanks

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I had photographed this tea garden for documentation. All these tea estates have been created after clear felling the shola forests. So though I drink tea, I have no love lost for these tea gardens. Frankly speaking, not many people will realise that a small cup of tea has such a big impact.

From a photographers point of view, if we really want to show the lush green tea gardens, then one has to search for the right place. For example, I am uploading a 100% crop of this image ( 773 x515 pixels) to show that there are more yellow leaves here. Green looks more pleasing to our eyes.

In my previous comment in Pane 3, I had said "If the image lacks details, then it is trashed rather than sharpening. " I meant to say that if I find that details are lacking, then I trash the image. When you are photographing for a long time, then it doesn't make any sense to keep second rate images and fill up your hard disks.

To click this image, I moved into the tea bushes and clicked it with a 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS lens, as it was outside. I used 109mm focal length at f13, 1/80 second. That gave me the requisite depth of field.

The same thread and images when viewed using a better colour profiled browser like firefox makes for much better and accurate viewing than browsers like chrome. By the way, I use chrome for most of my other browsings.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Dr. Kalpamoi Kakati]

I agree that shola forests should not be cut out to create tea gardens.Every vegetation has got its own importance,so as the tea.Tea gardens should be planted , but not at the cost of important shola forest. Having said that,one should not develop disliking for tea,as it was human not the tea which did clear felling of shola forest :).
I view images of this website mostly in Firefox :). I can see few yellow leaves between the green leaves in the cropped image.

[Pralay Lahiry]

My native town is near to Darjeeling in Jalpaiguri where there are quite a few tea estates. Tea gardens have a span of life and after certain years, the garden has to be planted all over again to replenish the soil. The present owners cultivate a patch till the soil runs out and then simply sells it to somebody else who in turn extract as much as possible from the overexploited bushes and soil. The the quality of tea as well as the soil deteriorates.