Graceful Orchid

[Roman Kurywczak]

In my never ending quest to play with BG's and flowers I bought this orchid for $10 on the street in S Miami specifically to photograph. Took this outside and placed it on a table where I could work at a reasonable height and kept moving the table closer or further away from some BG vegetation. I looked for areas where the light was rather even and shaded.....to alow me to ge the Max. DOF I like and keep the BG muted and dark. I did clip a few blossoms to make the flow better......so all done in camera. Some of you may remember I used the sky as a BG in this situation.....I tried this type of BG with all those blooms as well. This gives you an idea on my thoought process when photographing beautiful blooms.
Canon1D Mark lll with the Sigma 180mm macro at f22 and 1/200 sec. tripod mounted at ISO 640. Mt 24 twin lights at minus 1&1/3 and gold reflector held below right with 10 second timer. Smoothed out the BG a bit in PP'ing.

[Ken Childs]

I remember this flower! I like the comp and of course the flower is awesome. The upper areas of the flower look a bit muted so if this were mine, I would boost the contrast to see what I'd get. I'm not sure I like how the BG changes in appearance from left to right....I think I'd prefer for it to be even throughout.

[Brendan Dozier]

That is a very cool looking flower and good looking composition, Roman. The dark BG really makes it pop. Nice work!

[Anita Bower]

This interesting Orchid is nicely placed in the frame. The flowers stand out against the dark bg. I had to look hard to see what Ken meant about bg changing from L to R. I'd like to see it brightened up just a bit. The center of the flower looks a bit unnatural, but I assume that is what it looked like. You don't mention your PP. This image doesn't work real well for me, but I think it is because I'm not overly fond of the flower itself. It looks waxy and difficult to capture well.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Roman. Looking at this image, I would say that no flash was used - so you used it perfectly. :S3: The DOF is great and I like the flow of the comp. Ken makes an interesting point about the background and you might try lightening the right half a little - but it's not a deal breaker. Well done.