Visual haiku triptychs

For my Tokyo show, I am exploring what I call “visual haikus”, a series of triptychs I began a few years ago. I had worked with mixed media encaustics during the 2014 Encaustics workshop with Lean Macdonald in Victoria.
The haiku poetic form consists of 3 lines of 5-7-5 syllables and focuses on details of the here and now, often dealing with nature. I have decided to adapt the format to photographs shown in a 3-panel format replicating a 5-7-5 proportion (11″x17″). At least one of the panels (most likely the widest one, will feature the subject (human or nature). I will keep it open, letting the viewers make up their own interpretation of the haiku sequence or narrative.
I have been moving towards a brown warm-toned monochromatic palette, retaining red for a dash of colour, trying to simplify, reduce. In the images below, I use a red leaf texture layer in Photoshop to blend in with the darker areas of the photos, giving it the organic quality I am looking for. Here is a sample of 2 of the 9 images:

I will try printing the images above on thicker washi paper, applying gold leaf on the surface of some areas of the print, then infusing with it wax. Brown-black-gold-red….

In order to take advantage of the translucency and red pigment already part of the print, I will need to limit my use of mixed media. I may use pencil and black ink, red ink washes, red wax, perhaps embed a real leaf here and there… we’ll see.

I like the idea of the triptychs, yet I also like the single image above, which allows for a fuller view of the subject.

Tonality and selective colour

All my life, I have been photographing in colour, often using black, orange, reds and yellows. I guess I enjoy the drama of colours against a dark background.

However, for a while now, I have been developing a greater appreciation of monochrome, not necessarily black and white, but warm tones such as sepia, reminiscent of the pictorialist style. I've discovered that the range and contrasts in tonality open a whole new way of looking at things. However, I do like colour and would never be able to completely eliminate it from my work. What I like even more is the idea that I can introduce colour in a monochrome piece by selecting a specific area of the image I wish to highlight in its original colour. This adds the necessary punch or splash of colour to a warm toned image and draws the eye immediately to that area of the photo.

I explored various applications such as Snapseed and Tonality which provided some degree of success with warm tone filters and selective colouring.

However, the best way I have found to do this to my personal liking is with Photoshop, by adding B&W (with a warm tone profile) and Selective Colour adjustment layers to the original colour photograph.

Colour photo in Photoshop with B&W and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers

Various filters in Tonality