What if baby roses were a doo-wop group?

[rufus5150]

Baby roses and learning how to use 3 lights instead of 1 made for a very unsatisfactory evening. I salvaged a few shots, this being one of them, and I kept it for the very reason that it reminded me of a doo-wop group with lead and backing vocals. Enjoy.

And here's a second one from the session that I think works conceptually but fails technically (lack of edge definition on the glass, I should have used a polarizing filter, I should have cleaned the thing with alcohol instead of spending 30 minutes healing out dust spots, etc.).

 

[rufus5150]

Still-looking-for-feedback, bump!

 

[timethief]

Its always pleasure looking at your flowers.
although..(here it comes ) i think the leaf and the shadows on the petal next to it, in the first picture are a little distracting. but that's just me probably.

good idea for the second shot. it made me look into it a few times.

 

[rufus5150]

Thanks for the feedback.

I waffled on the petal/shadows, honestly. The shadow was created by another vase just off camera, but in the end I decided to keep it (always debatable as to whether or not I made the right decision). I do think I'd have been better off including more than one leaf. It does draw attention to it.

 

[timethief]

I actually like the leaf , the level of detail it shows, and its color.
I agree with you anther leaf would look much better in the picture.
how far are the vocals from the lead by the way ?

 

[rufus5150]

An inch, maybe? These are all really small roses. Working with just the 50mm was extremely frustrating.

 

[timethief]

wow . an inch? the front 2 from the behind 3?
seems much much more. nice work.

 

[rufus5150]

There's very little image compression going on. I was on a 50mm prime at minimal focal distance. The back ones were a lot smaller, too.

 

[timethief]

may i ask what metering you were using and where did you have the focus?

 

[rufus5150]

Manual mode. I don't have access to a light meter all of the time so this was done with touch and feel (and a lot of chimping). Calumet genesis frame left was at 25/60 through a shoot-through umbrella, back light was a bare 580exII aimed directly at the flowers at 1/64th power, frame right is a white reflector. F/11 focused on the center of the first petal and reframed. The blown out bits were created intentionally in the post.