A Visit from the Onion Fairy

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Roger Hicks

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A few weeks ago I saw an extraordinary sight: a field full of onions, all neat and apparently ready to be sold, arranged in furrows. Hitherto I had imagined that onions were a root crop but after seeing this I wonder if they are not delivered by an onion fairy. The difficult bit was telling the story in as few pictures as possible. After all, a field full of onions like his is mildly interesting -- at least, I've never seen anything like it -- but it isn't that interesting. How would you have photographed them?

Cheers,

Roger
 
Very nice photo's Roger. I don't see how you could of done any better under the circumstances.

As for the onions, looks to me they have been uprooted & are now ready to be harvested by the pickers. Reminds me of how our pumpkin fields look here in N. Carolina.
 
I don't know about photographing them as my eyes would be watering! Ha!

Kind of like photographing little kids, I'd try my hand photographing them at their height.
 
Roger Hicks said:
How would you have photographed them?

Cheers,

Roger
Click to expand...

If someone else is footing the bill, from a light aircraft.
If not, with a drone.

Alternatively, the absolute opposite of that with the camera at field/ground level, main onion large in the vf, the rest off at an angle disappearing into the distance. Kind of like when people perform a focus or bokeh test.

Hmm, thinking about it some more, even perhaps playing with multiple exposures, stacking the images. Close up and from afar.. Choosing a different time of day. Early morning mist. Long evening shadows. Anything that makes it not just a pic of onions in an onion field. Almost like an exercise given to art school students.
 
Love the first shot, there is a little bit of geometry which helps, the dark ground is an ideal background to enhance the colours of the onions, yes, I like it.
I guess it was not an easy subject...
robert
 
They're being 'cured'. Onions need two to three weeks out of the ground or until the tops necks are completely dry and the outer skin on the onion becomes slightly crisp.
I would expect the farmer will pick them up soon and move them to a well-ventilated barn -- leaving them out in the field is just begging for rain.
 
Roger Hicks said:
...After all, a field full of onions like his is mildly interesting -- at least, I've never seen anything like it -- but it isn't that interesting. How would you have photographed them?

Cheers,
Roger
Click to expand...

I guess I would have tried close up, wide open, with a wide angle, e.g. Leica Q at marco setting. Getting really good detail on the subject with interesting mountains of the ground out of which they come from in the background and out of focus.
 
Roger, welcome back.

I think you did what I would have done - a couple of documentary photographs - one of the field, one close-up.

I can back up the leaving-onions-to dry technique. It's what onion growers do.

David
 
I think they are ready for a rapid-plant technique of turning the field upside-down, easily done by quick-handed leprechauns.
 
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