Heirloom Eggplant

[Julie Kenward]

I finally got around to photographing something for the food challenge this past 4th of July! These are heirloom eggplants that a man was selling at our City Market last weekend. They were absolutely beautiful and had a very unusual shape and color.

In looking back, I wish I had captured a bit more of the stem on the eggplant to the right but I was so taken by the soft color palette of the eggplant itself that my thoughts on composition got crowded out a bit. Live and learn!

Canon 40D, EF 100mm f/2.8 macro
f5/6 @ 1/200, ISO 200
AWB, Matrix metering, handheld, shaded light
Removed some slight blemishes in CS4; crop and sharpen.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jules,
Nice to see you popping in! My first reaction was similar to yours.....more stem on the right......but since it isn't there...how about less! Cropping uot the stem on right (just the green on the R frame edge) and then proportionally off the top......softening the highlight in the ULC.....that should do the trick! A few tweaks will make this one work very nicely!

[Julie Kenward]

I'll give it a try, Roman. Sadly, I've already softened that bright area like three times...I guess I'll give it another go!

[Ken Childs]

I've already softened that bright area like three times...I guess I'll give it another go!
Hey Jules, I just tried painting over the bright areas with dark purple selected from the top fruit...a soft brush, opacity of 15% and I thought it looked pretty good.

[Anita Bower]

Hi, Jules. I'm catching up a bit here. I think you are correct that including more of the stem would have made a stronger composition. I agree with cropping from the right as well as painting with low opacity the purple and green highlights. I also tried lowering the contrast just a bit, and it helped. I might clean up a few more blemishes. Beautiful colors in these eggplants--unusual with the white in them. How did they taste? I love eggplant.