festive hydrangea

[Dennis Bishop]

I must be stuck in a leaf phase. This hydrangea had only one flower cluster this year, but it did put on a display when it was backlit by the morning sun. I don't know why -- the holiday season, perhaps -- I added the fireworks after spending a long time getting the image just the way I wanted it.

fireworks (several years ago) -- Nikon D2X, zoom lens at 200 mm, f/8, 8.2 seconds, ISO 100
hydrangea -- Nikon D3S, 105 mm macro lens, f/3, 4-exposure HDR at 1 EV intervals, ISO 200

processing

• Topaz Simplify -- Watercolor II
• Alien Skin Snap Art -- Watercolor, Color blend mode
• four B&W layers -- two Fractalius; Alien Skin Snap Art, Stylize Line Art; Topaz Simplify edges; all Multiply Blend mode with reduced opacities
• Flypaper Textures -- texture at Multiply blend mode, partially masked from hydrangea
• two Kim Klassen textures -- one Pin Light blend mode; one Multiply blend mode, partially masked from hydrangea; both at reduced opacities
• two Photo Filter adjustment layers -- Cyan masked from hydrangea, Warming 81 masked from everywhere else
• masked border
• fireworks -- two layers at reduced opacities, one at Linear Dodge blend mode, other at Color Dodge blend mode
• gradient vignette

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Dennis, I like the backlighting and the shadows it created. The fireworks are cool and quite unexpected but they work well with the image - almost like the hydrangea was erupting I like the subtle framing also.

[Judy Howle]

I like the lighting on the hydrangea and the fireworks do make it look festive. Clever idea!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Dennis, love the framing and the fireworks really work quite nicely for this comp!

[Christopher Miller]

Love the composition and lighting, Dennis. The fireworks add a nice pizazz to the image. I see you used textures, so this would qualify as a theme image.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Dennis,

Greetings. I particularly like the shadow to light transition in the leaves... the shadow of the leaf on the left center almost looks like a separate leaf itself. Not wild about the central oof leaf (I wouldn't be opposed to cutting and pasting a transform of one of the other leaves in shadow over that one). Thanks for posting.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Dennis Bishop]

. . . Not wild about the central oof leaf (I wouldn't be opposed to cutting and pasting a transform of one of the other leaves in shadow over that one). . . .

I agree whole-heartedly. If I were doing this over again (next year, sometime, after it's recovered from winter???), I'd definitely use a smaller aperture. The leaf in the lower left was way out of focus, but it was much easier to fix because of its orientation. I used a very edited version of the leaf in the lower right that's in both sun and shadow to cover it.

[Anita Bower]

Beautiful leaves. I like the details and the two tones of green. I'm not overly fond of the fireworks. A striking image.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I love the greens and the backlighting. I think the lines radiating is sort of cool, like it will continue to grow. Very subtle pretty frame too.

[gary ellwein]

I like the back lighting with the varying shades of green. The textured bg nicely accentuates the leaves. The out of focus leaf is a bit distracting. I'm with Anita relative to the fireworks.