A Budding Idea

[Ed Vatza]

I was out yesterday morning working with some of the usual suspects (Chickory, Moth Mullein, Thistle and such) then I came across this plant starting to bud out. I'm not even sure exactly what it is. But it intrigued me. It ran very tall (around 4') and had flowers and buds at different heights. I singled in on these buds with the two longer stems reaching to the skies. I worked my way all around the plant and liked this perspective. But it is so different from what I have been doing that I have to wonder what others think. So tell me what do you think?

Canon Rebel XT; Sigma 150mm Macro; Canon 430 EX Flash with LumiQuest Softbox on adjustable bracket; Tripod-mounted.

1/60 sec at f/11; ISO 800; -1/3 EV; FEC -1

[John Cooper]

I like your thinking here Ed but the composition doesn't seem to have the impact of your previous posts.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Pretty crisp image. But the 2 stems running across the diagonal seem a bit distracting...

[Ed Vatza]

Thanks John. Thanks Kaushik.

I was trying to do a couple of things with this image. First, I wanted to get a little farther away from the fully bloomed flower images I have been posted with some regularity. Second I wanted to work with some other elements that I had read about. In this case I wanted to use the the naturally occurring stems to create some geometric areas (in this case triangles) that divided up the canvas with the subject filling the right triangle. I guess I didn't execute it as well as I would have liked.

Thanks again for the critiques.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Ed, I have to agree that the stems just don't work well. I understand your thought on the comp, but straight detail less stems just don't add any thing to the comp.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ed,
Not much to add. May want to just play with the 2 bud stems next time. may have given the same effect.......but less distracting. One focused.....one out & set back would work!