Tulip Spiralling Up.

[Daniel Cadieux]

There is nothing better than to find a cool subject around the home! This tulip pushing up from the ground is at the side of the house and I would have easily missed it if not for some early spring clean-up around the perimeter of the house. I've never seen a tulip leaf spiralling this way, and with the bud next to it I immediately saw the potential... Time for a clean-up break to concentrate on this beautiful sprouting plant! I took a number of photos at different angles, here is my favorite from the session.

Canon 7D + 100mm f/2.8 macro lens, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/200s., f/4, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, FF, a couple of pieces of stuck dirt patched off the tulip, NR to the darker areas.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Very, very nice! Great composition, DOF and light. A winner in my book! Well done.

[Norm Dulak]

Hi Daniel.

I agree in all respects with Jerry's comments. I really like it.

But as I view this image, I'm really impressed by the delicate spiral structure on the left. It's so sharp at its origin, and then it gradually blurs as the spiral expands. Do you have other shots that concentrate more exclusively on that spiral alone?

Just to see what might be possible, I've experimented a bit with your OP in this repost, cropping the image to concentrate on the spiral, and then cloning out some of the bright structure to the right of the spiral. My sincere apologies if this repost does not work for you.

Norm

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Norm, thanks for the rework. Thankfully I did take some of the spiral by itself too (its fun having a stationary subject!!)...I have a very neat one that I will post, but taken from another angle.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Daniel. Very nicely seen and photographed. I really like the subject and the comp plus the shallow DOF works well here. Norm's repost makes an interesting alternative. Very well done!

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Very nice subject, well composed, I like the dof here. Hope to see the spiral image soon.

[Ken Childs]

Hey Daniel, I like the OP but I'm really looking forward to your shots of just the spiral. In the OP, IMHO the star of the show is that spiral but the brightness of the bud keeps pulling my attention away from that star. Giving the spiral the entire frame seems to way to go.