November Light

[Mary Stamper]

The Oakleaf Hydrangeas as among the last to turn color in November, and their location in my garden makes them likely to be hit by some fabulous backlight. I shot a whole series like this, playing with the lens flare, the out-of-focus highlights and even the blown highlights, to try to preserve the impression of the sun bursting out from behind the wonderful leathery leaves.

D2X
Nikkor 200mm macro lens
iso 100

[Mike Moats]

Hey Mary, The backlight really make this leaf pop, great texture and rich color in the leaf.

[Fabs Forns]

Great idea, Mary. In my opinion, , though, it has too much around the main subject that rather takes away from it.

[Robert O'Toole]

Agree with Fabs that a tighter crop on the beautiful back lit patterns would make the image much stronger and pleasing.

When I am shooting Macro I normally work a subject by starting long and cropping loose then end up close to 1:1 unless the subject flys away :) or in this case, blows away in the wind.

Robert

[Anita Rakestraw]

I like your basic idea and creativity, Mary. I like everything about this image except for the OOF tan leaves at the top and left, and the blown leaf intruding from the left top. Those things keep pulling my eye away from the rest.

[Mary Stamper]

In general, I don't much like photos that fixate the eye on one obvious subject. The subject here, to me anyway, is the behavior of the light, not the leaf. I try to keep the eye moving around the image, a style some appear not to like, but that's what I go for. That said, here is one of the other versions. I still prefer the first one, but some may like this one better.