Spathe

[John Chardine]

I was trying for simplicity here. This is a spathe flower made at home on the kitchen table. I positioned two flashes each side of the flower at about 90° to each other. The flashes had white cards attached to their heads and the light bounced off these. BG was a white sheet, underexposed to give grey.

I cropped and sharpened, and blurred the BG a bit. Also boosted yellow channel a little to brighten up the flower.

Canon EOS 5D, 100mm f2.8 macro
capture date: Monday, 9 March 9, 10:09 PM
exposure program: Manual
ISO speed: 200
shutter speed: 1/10
aperture: f22.0
exposure bias: +0.0
metering: Pattern
flash: ON - 2 flashes triggered by Canon remote each about 50cm from subject. Left was key, right was fill with 6:1 set as the ratio on remote.

[Gus Cobos]

Nicely composed and executed John,
This is very nice, it is simple and beautiful...my kind of image...I like the play between the shadows and the light, giving your subject depth, and a three dimension quality. I also like the placement in frame. You captured the texture well and the color rendition is dead on...congrats on a job well done...:cool:

[denise ippolito]

John, You really have a good eye! Your BG color is fantastic and the tip of your Spathe is great! The entire image is simple yet elegant!!

[Mike Moats]

Hey John, I like the details, and good job with the flash. For me I would like to see a tighter crop as I think it has to much negitive space, but I'm a tight crop freak. I also think a slight angle of the subject woud make it look less composed.

[Joseph Martines]

John: I cannot fault the picture. It is well done.

Sometimes I tilt my camera body so that a composition like this would have the stem angling/diagonaling from a corner.

Now I'm trying to visualize it and I think your shot is better!

[Julie Kenward]

I was thinking the same thing as Joseph but in this case I also agree that the straight up version works best. I do think a slight crop on one side to offset the plant a little might be nice but you did a beautiful job on the set up, exposure and details. I like it as presented.

[Aristotle Georgiou]

Stunning view of this flower.

Everything is looking very nice and if I was going to suggest anything it would be to crop a little from the Left and right. But that is my personal taste and this is an enjoyable view.

[Anita Bower]

I love the simplicity of this image. It shows of the beautiful lines and shapes of the flower. I like it straight, it gives it a formal feel. Cropping the sides a bit would work.

I know you purposefully made the BG grey, but I would like to see it against a white BG, or another color.