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View Full Version : Ready...Set...Grow!



Julie Kenward
05-13-2008, 01:25 PM
Gerbera daisies just waiting to make their grand entrance...

Canon 40D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
f4 @ 1/80
Handheld, natural light (shot indoors near a window)
AWB, eval metering
Processed in Photoshop with Camera Raw

Dan Brown
05-13-2008, 02:12 PM
Hi Julie. I like this. It is a good candidate for the "Orton effect". I am seeing two areas that I think should be sharper. The two left buds have unsharp areas. Maybe you could selectively sharpen these areas a little.

Dan Brown
Sacramento

Mary Stamper
05-13-2008, 04:48 PM
I like this a lot. I wouldn't sharpen it any more personally. I like the sort part photo/part painting look that it has.

John Cooper
05-13-2008, 07:43 PM
An interesting composition Julie of the Gerbera buds. Maybe a reflector or fill flash to throw a little light into the bottom shadow area would improve it for me. But quite nice as is.
I am going out today to buy some Gerbera seedlings :) - on second thoughts maybe not - we are just going into winter :(

Roman Kurywczak
05-13-2008, 08:40 PM
Hi Julie,
Don't know how i missed this one..........might have something to do with busy but........I notice these are your plants........Moving the 1 green leaf intersecting with the lower right bud will help compositionally.....a clothespin works great for such instances..........a small rock (hey they are yours and unbelievably reilient!) ...or similat item will get the protruding leaves out of the way..... a slightly higher (and I do mean minute) angle........would allow for a hair more seperation betwen the UL bud and the one directly below it. Extremely slight movements......will make dramatic changes. See.......you still inspire me to try wide open.........i'm trying..........with nowher near the success you are ahieving!

Julie Kenward
05-13-2008, 09:22 PM
Roman, you're right about all those changes making the image stronger. I'm still fighting between what looks "propped" and what looks like I just stuck my head in and what you're seeing is what I saw. I battle back and forth on macros on whether I want it to look perfect or whether I want it to look "real." When I leave that leaf in the front looking all OOF, I kind of do it on purpose, hoping the person seeing the image feels like I did when I stuck my macro lens down there and went "Hey! Look what I found!" Make sense?

And I'm going to have to try that f32 thing. I'm as afraid of it as you are of shooting wide open!

Now...if I was doing this for a paying customer, you bet I'd move that front leaf. However, as my own personal style emerges (only had the DSLR for a little under five months) I seem to lean towards the "look what I just saw!" image instead of the perfectly executed one.

Roman Kurywczak
05-13-2008, 09:30 PM
Hi Julie,
too bad Mike is away for a while..........I can almost gaurantee that he leaves nothing to chance.......everything is "controlled"....as much as we can!...........maybe our eye just want's to see perfect........or our vision of it! Doesn't mean it's right or wrong.........just our preference.

Ed Vatza
05-14-2008, 05:13 AM
Nice composition, Julie. I keep thinking of that line from Amadeus when whoever it was said the Mozart - "too many notes". I keep seeing "too much green". And green is one of my favorite colors. Still I really like the composition. I really like the image. I just wish for a tad more color.