Light through the Tulip

[Nancy Bell]

Photographed this indoors with afternoon light through the window. I wanted to capture that glowing, translucent quality.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens, tripod, 1/50, f6.3, exp. comp. -2/3, ISO 400.

Comments & critiques most appreciated.

[John Robinson]

You certainly got the effect you needed Nancy That little bright light at the top. Now I,ve noticed it my eyes go straight to it every time. Can't decide - it does seem to indicate where the light is coming from. I,ll look again in the morrow .
John

[Randy Stout]

Nancy:

Nice translucence as desired, lovely colors as well. Interesting to play the much larger but darker green area off against the smaller but brighter white area at top. The overall effect makes me think of a slot canyon in the Southwest.

Cheers

Randy

[Mitch Haimov]

Wow--I love almost everything about this, Nancy! Colors, textures, and light are all fantastic. Comp is also great, tho perhaps a little (and only a little) tight for my taste at the bottom. However, I think it would have worked better with more DOF both simply to have enough DOF to cover the subject and because I'm thinking it would have helped you avoid the odd halo-y look between subject and BG. Using a smaller aperture would seem to have been feasible. Also not crazy about that BG--I think it should either be much brighter/whiter, or darker and of a complementary color. Finally, I find the bright triangle of BG at UR distracting, but cropping it would cause you to loose some great stuff further left. A darker, complementary colored BG would likely make this less distracting. I do like this image very much.

[Norm Dulak]

Hi Nancy.

You've captured a beautiful glow here that is really impressive. To make it even more spectacular, I'd do two things. My solution to the bright UR spot would be to select it and tone it down. But if it were mine, I'd also crop a little off the bottom, just up to the point where the really dark spot is gone. But this is very good as is, and I thoroughly enjoy it.

[Nancy Bell]

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments. I wondered about that bright spot in the upper right corner. I think I'll play around with changing the bkgd color. Norm, do you mean to crop off all of the green stem?

[Nancy Bell]

Here is a version with a complementary green bkgd. Better? Just different?

[Norm Dulak]

I had thought it might be good to crop out the stem. But your repost is great. I wouldn't change a thing. Beautiful.

[Mitch Haimov]

Oh, I like the repost much better, Nancy! BFG is more pleasing, UR no longer distracting, and you got rid of those halos/artifacts around the bottom of the petals. :5 I am for keeping the stem (could even go for a bit more of it).

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks Norm & Mitch, for your very helpful advice!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Nancy. I liked the OP - my eye went right to the bright spot in the UR and then followed the cool rim light on the edge of the petals and on down the two petal edges to the bottom of the frame. The colors and translucence were very appealing. And then I saw your repost - big improvement over an already strong image! Very well done!

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks Steve!