Late Blossoms in Blue

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Nature Photography Image Critique : One Thread

Taken with a Nikon CP900 digital camera. Spot metering. Macro mode. 1/184 sec. Hand held. 35 mm equivalent settings 38-115 mm zoom @ 108 mm. Aperture 1:3.5.

On an early afternoon foray through a natural park in Winnipeg, Manitoba, my eye was caught by the wild forms of the petals. The spent blossom signalled that the season had passed its peak.

Your coments on the composition would be appreciated.

-- Garry Schaefer (schaefer@pangea.ca), September 06, 1998

Answers

Sorry, I needed to review the guidelines.



-- Garry Schaefer (schaefer@pangea.ca), September 06, 1998.


Great, Gary! I've rarely seen such a nice soft "impressionist" look. Please explain your technique, if you will.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), September 06, 1998.


Beautiful colors, peaceful and refreshing. Flowers are simply dancing and the color goes with the mood. Great job.

-- Bahman Farzad (cpgbooks@mindspring.com), September 06, 1998.

Beautiful photo. Composition, lighting, focus, exposure, all earn A's. But what's best is the subject. So many times we see beauty and beauty well done is beautiful indeed. But here we see character and thus see through the eyes of the photographer. Good job.

-- Warren Kato (wkato@aol.com), September 07, 1998.

The background is too busy for my taste and competes with the petals for attention and I don't like the dead flower in the back. The photo doesn't strike me as particularly "impressionistic" either...

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), September 07, 1998.


Thank you for your input. The Nikon digital camera has been noted to produce slightly less saturated colors than some other makes. That can, in some circumstances, produce an ethereal feel, particularly with its rendering of shades of blue. In this case the image that came from the camera was cropped slightly on all four sides, the brighness was increased by 5% and the 5% was added to the blue channel.

There seem to be at least two schools of thought on flowers. One would focus stronly on the isolated blossom and the other would add some context regarding the environmental setting. I like both and sometimes have trouble deciding which would be best in a particular case. The posted image is part of a set located on my home page depicting the early signs of fall in Winnipeg, Manitoba. That was why I preferred some context, including the spent blossom.

Regards.

-- Garry Schaefer (schaefer@pangea.ca), September 08, 1998.


Garry,

Nice photo. Composition of the three primary blossoms is great. The DOF is perfect for this subject; just enough but not too much. In fact, given the long nature of the flower petals, the out of focus grass blades reinforce them.

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), September 09, 1998.


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