Took this one morning last week at the local park. Occasional light breeze made it a challenge and it took me a while to get a decent BG. Was kind of undecided regarding the low dof and mixture of in focus and OOF pollen sacs - think I need to try for some additional versions. Crop, rotation, ACR, CS5, cloned out some spots on BG, adjusted color balance to bring out more blue in BG, and added some saturation.
Brendan, this is stunning...intense colors, great BG, great texture in the pollen sacs...love the little curved tendrils holding the sacs. Other-worldly....in a good way!
I think the shallow dof works quite well here. The hot pink and yellow stand out nicely against the blue bg. Nice diagonal composition. I might lower the saturation just a bit.
Hi Brendan. The colors are striking and I like the diagonal comp. The blue background really sets off the flower. I tend to prefer more (rather than less) DOF, so I think I would like to see enough depth such that the entire central stalk was sharp. As this is rather subjective, I agree with you that having some alternate versions to compare to this one would be good. I hope you get the chance to work this, or a similar, flower again as you're onto something good here.
Beautiful colors and flower. I am with you in wishing for lots more d-o-f but the wind got you.... Is light from the sky creeping into the ULC?
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Thanks, John, Anita, Steve, & Arthur, much appreciated.
Think I will try some versions with more dof if those Hibiscus' are still looking good.
Anita - I think you're right about lowering the saturation a bit.
Arthur - yes, I think that was light from the sky creeping into ULC. It's amazing how just a millimeter or two in any direction can drastically change your BG.
I like uniform BG's but I kind of like the gradation of light in this one, gives a bit of depth to the space.