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Nancy Bell
01-08-2011, 05:36 PM
I have not posted here since summer ended, the insects flew away and the flowers died. But I am babysitting a cyclamen and could not help but notice the sun shining thru the pink petals. This is a composite of a background blur of the pink petals and a top image of one flower. This is my 1st time actually photograping something indoors :). Sure beats standing in the wind and snow!

Canon 7D, Canon 100 f2.8 macro lens, ISO 400, 1/250, f10, exp. comp. -2/3 for the top image

Comments and critiques most welcome.

Richard Lovison
01-09-2011, 09:38 AM
Hi Nancy,

I'm on the fence with this one. Love the softness and shades of pink. The problem I have is when viewing this image my eye always seems to be drawn to the lower left corner as the main focus of interest even though the 3 largest petals seem to be where you want the interest to be.

Richard

Ken Childs
01-09-2011, 01:55 PM
Hi Nancy, you've captured some lovely shades of pink with this one! I don't mind the corner comp but I do wish there was a bit more room on the right....enough so the petal towards the UR wasn't clipped. The other distraction, at least for me, is the overly bright petal near the LL....maybe painting over it with a soft, low opacity brush with some darker pink would help. There are some dark areas that I would attempt to remove or lighten...center bottom and some of the petal edges towards the top. If you are still are babysitting this plant, this is something you should revisit! And yes, shooting indoors is a lot easier! :)

Nancy Bell
01-09-2011, 02:15 PM
Thank you for the great ideas. I'll try again. I did want the main focus to be the lower left with the deepest pink as that is the center of the flower. But I see that is hard to tell.

Julie Kenward
01-09-2011, 08:27 PM
I love this but do see what both of the men are saying - valid points. I'm wondering if darkening the URC just a bit to closer balance the LLC wouldn't help keep the eye in the frame? Just a thought...

Anita Bower
01-10-2011, 09:16 AM
Hi, Nancy! I was delighted to see your pink Cyclamen as I posted a pink Cyclamen image this morning!

I like your idea of using a blurred BG and superimposing a sharp image of top. I may try it. I like how you captured the lovely curves and soft lines of this Cyclamen.

I find balancing the flowing petals and the center of the flower to be a challenge in my cyclamen images.

I think one of the problems you encountered in this image is shooting against backlight. I know how gorgeous that looks in real life, and a few weeks ago I took a bunch of backlight Cyclamen images. They just didn't come out as I had hoped. Perhaps I needed to use some front fill light from a reflector to balance the light.

The clipped petal does not bother me. I might take some off the top to help focus on the lower left corner.

Thanks for sharing.

Steve Maxson
01-10-2011, 02:18 PM
Hi Nancy. A very nice mix of pinks and I like how you handled the background. There are already lots of good comments above for you to consider. I might add that, for me, there seems to be a lot going on in the comp and I'm not sure where the center of interest should be. As Ken noted, the very bright areas in the lower left portion of the image are really drawing my eye from the other, more interesting areas of the image. :) This is certainly a subject worth revisiting and because you're working indoors you can do a lot of experimenting. Keep them coming.

Roman Kurywczak
01-12-2011, 12:08 PM
Hey Nancy,
Playing catch up myself! I like the tones and some great suggestions above! Remember......you can use a reflector to bounce some of the light (aluminum foil or even white foamcore works great) back towards the central part. Just something to keep in mind for next time!