A Cosmos Dream

[Rudi van den Heever]

My favourite image from a recent cosmos shoot in the Highveld region of South Africa with two good friends, Felix Reinders and Morkel Erasmus...

My mates were too scared to wander deeper into the patch of cosmos weed - I am not sure whether they were afraid of the possibility of a charge of buckshot in their rears from the farmer whose farm it was or whether it was because of the millions of mosquitoes with wing spans of about 2 meters... Well, I went all in and my rear is fine, but I am still itching from those mozzie bites...!

Canon 7D and 10-22mm lens at 22mm with a circular polarizer.
1/6s and 0.6s at F18 and ISO 100.
A blend of two exposures...

[Don Railton]

As soon as I saw this Rudi I said "oooooh yea...!" I think this is a cracker of an image, beautiful colour and clarity of the flowers, and I like the light comming through the petals.. Sun is nicely placed etc, etc.. No Nits, only admiration and I am glad on your behalf that your rear end did not have to pay for this.

Well done..

DON

[Colin Driscoll]

Very clever and effective. Beautiful.

[Diane Miller]

Very nice how you got so close to the flowers. (It's often easier to beg forgiveness than permission.)

Did you shoot different compositions? I wonder how it would look if you moved left and got one with the tallest flower against the sun?

The exposure blend is striking -- fill flash can often give that effect, but this has a more natural look.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Love this one Rudi, but I would tone down the colors in the sky a touch...I normally do this by reducing the blacks on both the cyan and blue channels in Selective Color.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Love the perspective, the light through the flowers and the mood, mate. I agree with Andrew, sky needs to just back down a notch.
And don't you remember, I eventually was in the field with you, albeit close enough to the fence for a quick getaway

[BenBotha]

What an impressive image. I love kosmos, and the light really brings out the colours.
Ben