How Sweet It Is...

[Ed Vatza]

or maybe not.

When I'm not out making images or spending time here on BPN, I do a lot of reading about photography. I'm always looking for something new to try. I've just finished reading two of Tony Sweet's books and came away with lots of ideas to try.

Last evening I must have walked past 1000's of Spotted Knapweeds before something clicked in the back of my head and I thought of some of the images presented by Sweet where he used totally oof flowers to add color as part of the background. I've been spending a lot of time striving for perfectly homogeneous backgrounds. It was time to try something new. So to work I went. And here is the result. I'm no Tony Sweet, at least not yet :), but I tried. What do you think?

Canon Rebel XT, Sigma 150mm Macro lens, Canon 430 EX Flash with LumiQuest Softbox mounted on a flexible bracket and the whole thing tripod-mounted.

1/200 sec at f/11; ISO 800; -2/3 EV; FEC -1

[Jonathan Michael Ashton]

Nice shot Ed, I often look at flowers and take shots like this, in fact I did so yesterday. I don't have a particularly good eye for artistic composition but I would suggest your image might be better with either one flower head or perhaps three. One in focus and one close by out of focus gives the eye a little competition and tends to detract from the principal one that is in focus. I am sure I will learn more when I read other comments on your image. Thanks for sharing.
Jon

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Liked the composition. The central portion of the in-focus flower is bit too bright I feel & hence it is washing off the colours & details of the petals.

[Ken Kovak]

Ed,

Nice image. Interesting composition. I think your lighting and exposure is good.

I have just read Tony Sweets "Fine Art Flower Photography, Creative Techniques and the Art of Observation". I enjoyed it alot, especially his multiple exposure techniques, which I have learned to do in Photoshop. Which have you been reading?

Ken

[Robert O'Toole]

Hi Ed.

Nice comp and the details are great. I really like the soft light.

To me the image looks like it is under a dark cloud, I would use curves and warm it to change the gray=blue feel to the image. I like the OOF element. I also toned down the highlights to lower the contrast.

Robert

[Ed Vatza]

Thanks for the critiques folks. Much appreciated.

Ken, I just finished Fine Art Nature Photography and Fine Art Flower Photography. And I just ordered his book on Water, Fog and Ice.

Robert I like your re-work a lot - particularly bringing up some green in the background. Thanks..