Lupines

[Bruce Murden]

Photographed in Tom McCall Preserve, Rowena, OR. Nikon D80, 105mm Macro, ISO400, 1/500 @ f/3.8, hot breezy day. Processed in LR.

(but I'm having a bit of trouble with color rendition between LR & previews... may be due for a calibration.. stay posted for one with more saturation like it should have!)

[Bill Whitney]

Bruce...I like the comp, DOF you have here. The layers of sharpness provide a feeling of depth. I might be tempted to take out the piece of debris near the stem. Well done.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Bruce, I like the comp and great DOF. Agree with removing the small spec of dirt in the stem ULC. Nice diagonal positioning.

[Robert Amoruso]

When I saw the thumbnail was not sure I was going to like this, but WOW, great work. Just the right DOF, with the sharpness in the top left then receding into a soft blur as you travel down and right. Great use of the diagonal here and the receding OOF in the the BG adds great depth to the image. Composition is perfect.

[Julie Kenward]

You found a lovely DOF here. My eye goes right to the row that it should and then floats all over the rest of the image and comes back again.

Beautiful colors (even if they aren't as saturated as you would prefer) and your composition is spot on.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Bruce,
Well........you pulled one over on me. I usually like huge amounts of DOF..........but the way you handled it here even makes me love it! Not an easy task for a guy who loves his f32! I even have thee growig in my front yard.........and until your presentation.....never knew they looked like blue lady slippers! I might have to give wide open another try!

[Bruce Murden]

Thanks for all you comments!

Bill & Mike - I agree about the debris or whatever.. and got lazy and didn't hit PS yet. Such a rush to post things to BPN.

Roman - you don't have to live at f/32 all the time! Subject matter directs me in different ways. And that day, probably the 95 degree heat in the afternoon and a bit of a breeze brought me to wider aperture. I like exloring the details, which I think can be highlighted better sometimes with shallower DOF on a repeating subject like this.

I tried again after calibrating, and tried again... looked the same, with paler bluer flowers. Then I tried Safari, instead of Firefox 3, and the pic looked right! Must be a FF3 issue/difference with color handling. So if you see the flowers purple, you're probably seeing just the right color & saturation to my taste.