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Ron Conlon
07-28-2014, 07:03 AM
A balloon flower in the midst of opening. I have wanted to capture these blooms in the process of opening, and was pleased to find that they did well as cut flowers, and they opened slowly. Letting some of the leaves go out of frame seemed to relieve some of the artificiality in appearance...
21 images acquired by turning the focus ring, DMap stacked in Zerene.
Shot in a lightbox with remote flash, tripod, D5100 200mm 1/200s f6.3 ISO 100

Jonathan Ashton
07-29-2014, 07:41 AM
Well Ron you will be pleased to know I don't have one of these in the back garden!
I like the slightly muted colours, the flower looks great, the leaves, well some of the edges are a little indistinct. Purely from a compositional point of view, I find the leaf a little dominant, it seems to pull my eye from the lovely flower. I may sound a little critical but having said that I think it is a very pleasing image indeed.

Ron Conlon
07-29-2014, 08:20 AM
Thanks, Jon. Critique is why I come here--I have learned so much from it. I was mindful of the leaves' impact on the eye and composition, and had shot versions where I had trimmed the leaves off. While I love the lightbox, I find the results sometimes to be a little sterile, mugshot-ish or bloom-on-a-stick-ish. The less than ideal leaves (compositionally) I thought made it look a little less contrived (and it is plenty contrived with them in). I will continue to work on alternate approaches, thanks.

stuart wanuck
07-29-2014, 12:38 PM
Beautiful image guess you could say a captive flower

Steve Maxson
07-29-2014, 04:24 PM
Hi Ron. Love the soft light and the colors! The stacking worked very well here. I'm not that fond of the leaf on the right as it tends to lead my eye out of the frame. Other than that, this is just about perfect!

Diane Miller
07-30-2014, 12:19 PM
Lovely work on the flower! Maybe just a tad on the bright side??

I think if the two leaves were darkened a bit they would seem more natural -- the very low contrast grabs my attention. Or you could crop from the bottom and clone out the remains for a different presentation. It does feel a bit crowded to and sides, for my taste. Easy to add canvas.