Soft Pink Rose

[Ed Cordes]

This rose is in our yard. I made the image very late in the twilight to get soft light.

1D4 with 100mm F2.8 Macro. Evaluative metering at ISO 1600 f 5.6 1/40 sec on tripod.

Thanks for looking. Comments most welcome.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely colours on the rose, not too sure about the choice of aperture, I think I would have gone very wide or narrow and then looked at what was most pleasing to the eye. I find taking pictures of flowers like roses a particularly difficult task. The greens in the background appear to have a blue cast about them.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Ed. This is a beautiful rose and the soft light worked well for you. Very nice sharpness and detail within your DOF. I like your comp with the main bloom off-center to the right and tilting slightly toward the left - I would suggest tweaking it a bit, if you have the room, by adding a little space at the top and just a bit at the bottom so that the petal on the OOF flower is not touching the bottom edge of the frame. It's a matter of taste, but you might try warming up the color balance a little to remove the blueish caste that Jonathan notes above. Overall this is very well done and a couple minor tweaks would make it even stronger!

[Ed Cordes]

Thanks guys for the input and advice.

[Anita Bower]

You achieve the soft look you were after--good job. Beautiful rose! The clean bg provides a nice contrast. I don't mind the bluish cast to the bg. In a recent exhibit of Van Gogh paintings I notice that he often used blue or turquoise as a bg for his flower portraits. I might soften or lighten or something that one petal coming down in the lower center--I find the petal distracts me from the main rose. Nicely done.