Memorial Day motivation

[Roman Kurywczak]

Since mods aren't allowed to win the MMDC I figured I'd do some close up work (my favorite!!!) and hopefully give you guys and gals some inspiration....besides....got some brownie points by buying my wife all these flowers!!!
Canon 1D Mark lll with the Sigma 180mm macro and a 20mm extension tube at f32 for 1/60 sec. and ISO 800....hand held with the MT24 twin lights at minus 2/3.
Man I love that explosion of color!!! Worked this flower for 2 hours!!! Hope this inspires you to go out and try!!!

[Desmond Chan]

Wow, great inspiration it is ! No way not to love the color :)

[Cheryl Flory]

great results for those two hours! :D

like you said, great color! Love the repetition of the streaks radiating out from the center in all the petals, large and small. love the tiny green petal peeking through. gives nice contrasting color as well as depth.
the streaks in the petals almost look like motion blur, is that the way they are? or did you adjust them somehow?

[Thomas Herou]

The colors are fantastic!
I like the big dof also,nicely done!

[Julie Kenward]

I also love this but the thing that sets it apart to me is that one tiny green leaf. Most people would have cloned that out but, to me, this makes the image special. All that radiant color but you see that leaf and remember this is a living, growing thing. Wonderful!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Roman, Beautiful color and striking composition. Any reason why the flower's color matches the beer avatar?:)

[Harold Davis]

nicely done, RK. what an explosion of color. i noticed the leaf as jules mentioned. love that you left it. almost as you framed it to be that way!!!

[Anita Bower]

Stunning colors and sharpness and presentation. Love everything about it. That little green leaf (?) is a nice touch. Thanks for the inspiration. You wrote that you worked this flower for 2 hours. I'm assuming that was 2 hours photographing? About how many images did you take? Were there any others you thought worth keeping? Just curious about the work methods of excellent photographers.

[Stuart Frohm]

Exquisite photograph!
If there's anything "wrong" with this superb image, I don't realize it.
Thanks very much for posting it.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi All,
Thanks for the comments...Harold....no accidents in 2 hours!
Anita, I took approximately 200 images of this flower in the 2 hours. I kept about 50 of them but will pare that down to about 20 tonight. Some were test shots to balance the flash with the ambient while other times I just used it as fill. I did front, side, back, full bloom, tight in all those comps.....backlight, frontlit, combos, and even a few high key! I sometimes moved the bloom only a fraction of an inch. I used shallow DOF....but as usual my fovorites were the max DOF ones.....still working on my issues with that! I also shot about 4 hours of a bunch of Dahlia I bought my wife.....on that group I did some blurs! Once I find a beautiful specimen.....I get lost in it and will photograph it until one of us drops....usually I win and thats only because I put the flowers through some serious torture:D!
Quite by accident as I was moving the white Dahlia past some of my deck lights (it was getting dark) I saw the glow from behind......messed around with flashlights and such the next night with that Dahlia. I find it very easy to lose track of time when photogrpahing flowers......they just impress me with how strikingly beautiful they are and how delicate and intricate they are also! Unlike all other branches of photography I do....macro excites me the most....because I can manipulate the light the most!!!
Hope this gives you some insight and thanks again for the kind words!

[Steve Adkins]

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing your process and vision with us.

[Anita Bower]

Roman: Thank you for describing your approach to working the subject. It is helpful to know how others go about their photography, especially those who get great images!