White Crocus

[Anita Bower]

I find Crocus difficult to photograph in the garden due to how low they are and all the dry leaves and grasses around them. For this image, I cut these Crocuses and arranged them in a shallow bowl using a floral frog to hold them up. I used my indoor natural light set up (see my flicker account under the name anitabower, I can't seem to include the link here), with an orange paper as BG. I used a reading lamp to add some light to the BG as the late afternoon light wasn't quite strong enough. Used a gold reflector to lower left of flowers.

Konica Minolta 5D, 100mm macro, f32, 1 sec., ISO 100, manual focus, manual exposure, auto WB. Post processing with PS7, basic adjustments in levels, curves, brightness/contrast, hue/saturation, selective color. Dodged piece of flower to left of lower right leaf. Added slight vignette.

[Gus Cobos]

Simply beautiful Anita,
I like the central placement of your flowers in frame...the whites are dead on within the tonal range, you have fine details and the feel is warm and pleasing...good show. Looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[Joseph Martines]

Anita:

I was wondering how you achieved such a beautiful image until you explained it!!

I don't think my neighbor will let me cut her crocus!!

Lovely image and you have helped me think outside the box.

Thanks for sharing.

[denise ippolito]

Anita, I like the crocus and the composition. They don't seem sharp for f/32,but some of the stems do. I think the BG color looks more like a fall color and a soft pastel would have made them feel more like spring. I like your lighting and that is a great idea to bring them inside. Still it's a lovely composition.

[Stuart Frohm]

Beautiful! There's just enough texture in the white petals. Thanks very much for the detailed narrative.

[denise ippolito]

Anita, Going back and re-reading my critique it sounds like I don't think the flowers are sharp enough-but that isn't what I meant-I was just surprised that they weren't in sharper focus given the f-stop. Sorry if it sounded rough it wasn't meant to. I really do like the composition.

[Julie Kenward]

Gorgeous! Gosh I wish they had a little longer stem but I know what your're dealing with so I'll skip saying it...

Okay, I didn't skip saying it but you know what I mean!

The BG and lighting are excellent - love the use of colored paper to make the BG...you can use white walls and then "paint" them in pp as well. Nicely done, Anita - it's gorgeous!

[John Christian]

Simply beautiful!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Anita, very well done. Denise thought it could look a little sharper, and you have the details there it would just need a boost in sharpenng if you would like it sharper. Like the comp, lighting and BG color works well.

[Anita Bower]

Thank you all! It is wonderful to get detailed, specific feedback regarding strengths and weaknesses!

I had never thought of cutting Crocuses before! I will work on longer stems for the next image. I, too, wonder about the sharpness with f32. I will try Mike's idea of sharpening it more. I find I have trouble sharpening once an image has been resized down.

Denise--your first comment was perfectly fine! I knew you liked it and were just making comments that might imrprove the image. I will try using a more spring-like color--I hadn't thought of that, so, you see how helpful your comments were.

Jules--you always throw in something to peak my curiosity. Painting the BG in PS had not occured to me. I will have to figure out how to do it. Although, I do prefer to spend more time behind tha camera than in front of the computer monitor.

Anita :-)

[denise ippolito]

Anita, I'm so glad I wasn't misunderstood. Sometimes it's hard to translate your thoughts into words.:)

[Ed Vatza]

I'm coming to the party a little late, Anita. A lot has already been said. I will just add that I love the image. I find it stunning. The background picks up the few stamens perfectly to my eye. Actually, if anything, I would wish that a few more stamens were exposed to capitalize on the synergy even more.

And Jules, I bet somewhere, in some lab, a mad horticultural scientist is working on hybridizing long-stemed crocuses as we speak! :D

[Anita Bower]

Good point, Ed, about having more of the orange stamens. I'm working on some photos of Crocus with more of the stem showing.