reflection

[Rene Quenneville]

I did not know how to compose this one. The flowers were beautiful but the scene was a little too crowdy. I did try to align the reflection of the 2 cattail plants to point at the flowers (V shape), please give me your feedback.

Color adjustment and water clean-up in PS4

1/250s
f/11
ISO 400
200mm

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Rene,
I'm not fond of these type of BG's but this is a situation that we often find ourselves in.....sunny or bright overcast......with a great subject but a busy crowded BG.....what to do??? In these situations, I will use the sun as fill......underexposing the scene and use the flash as main light. It is a fine line you walk, but this has a few benefits....it will darken the water and surroundings quite a bit perhaps even turn them black, yet the flash will illuminate the subject and the sun acts as a fill. Make sense? Distance to subject for flash will play a huge role and then powering it up or down will help with the overall look. Good news is that with todays digital images.....much easier to adjust and tweak the flash and balance with ambient light. Hope this helps a bit for next time out in the field.

[Julie Kenward]

Rene, I think Roman is right but I have to say I still like this image very much as presented because of all the different shapes and textures. There's also a very serene feeling to the water - there's just a little too much going on! I cropped it much smaller and took it more horizontal than the original square crop. I also cloned out some imperfections here and there to "simplify" the things I left behind. Also, I did a bit of a clockwise rotation so the bottom of both white flowers sat more on an even line in the water. See what you think of this comp...

[Rene Quenneville]

Thank you Julie, This comp is a lot beter. You have conveyed my original intention. This is a great improvement.

[Julie Kenward]

Wonderful! :) Glad I could help.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Rene. I like the twin flowers, the calm water and the "V" of the reflections. I would agree that there is a bit much going on in the OP. Jule's repost makes a nice improvement - an instance where less is more. :)