A Water Lily!

[Bob Miller]

I went to Longwood Gardens recently....most of shots were deleted as the sun was very bright with no clouds in the sky...This is one I kept

Nikon D-300
200-400 mm
ISO400
1/100 sec at f16
Comments welcome!

[Bob Miller]

I forgot to mention that i used Topaz adjust/ mask combination :S3:

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I love the colors and dramatic dark bg. Nice light as well. I see possible post rocessing cleanup needed on the left side of the bottom leaf. Also a small little orange spot LL near the edge of the leaf. Hope that helps :5

[Jason Stander]

I agree with Cheryls pointers... otherwise a striking image... great use of colour... crisp... well balanced... WD!:w3

[christopher galeski]

I agree as well with cheryls critic,like the black BG,nice image.thanks.

[bhavya joshi]

Nice Lighting. effect.. and colors are beautiful with black BG. Great..:S3:

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Bob,
On days like that at longwood it's best to use flash as main light! Consider the sun a fill flash! I still think this came out excellent....debated the upper leaf for a while and give you something to playaround with.....but I would clean up the few blemishes there at least. I had PS opened so instead of explaining...decided to repost. 4 degree ccw rotation and then crop and clean up. After I did it.....I decided I like the OP with the leaf....but decided to show you what I did anyway. Let me know your thoughts.

[Bob Miller]

Hey Roman...Thanks for the repost but I think I am going to stick with the OP for balance.
Thanks again!

[denise ippolito]

Bob, I too like the OP best, the colors really pop on this one! Nice job and vision for this. Cheryl makes some good suggestions.:S3:

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Bob. Very nice job given the harsh lighting. An interesting flower with good colors. Roman's repost would be a viable alternate comp, but I, too, prefer the OP - I like the double diagonals of the two leaves. Well done.

[Brendan Dozier]

Very nice compostion, Bob, and black BG really make the colors pop. Great IQ, almost looks like a fine art painting. Nice work!

[John Storjohann]

Bob, I share your love of water lilies..and they can be SO hard to shoot once the sun gets a little higher in the sky. The trick is that with some of them, they don't open until later in the morning..while others close up by noon! You did a good job of handing the light and the shadows..the image has an etheral, dream-like quality to it, particularly on the pads...I'm leaning more toward the OP for composition. Nice capture!

[Bob Miller]

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions! :S3: