Spider Mum

rufus5150 · Mar 2, 2009

I usually post these in the General section but I had an incredibly off night. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get good composition on any of the flowers I was shooting. Deep DOF, shallow DOF, framing... I wanted to pull my hair out. Things just weren't working for me. But as I was trying to salvage something, anything, out of the set, I was doing a sharpening pass in Lab mode on the following and got the idea to do a multiply/apply image on it. Some tweaking later, I was pretty happy with how this shot turned out, blown highlights and all. Submitted for any C&C available.

Spider Mum:

rufus5150 · Mar 2, 2009

nearly-24-hours-and-no-c&c-bump!

NateS · Mar 3, 2009

Rufus - I don't know why nobody responded to this cause I think it's excellent. I love the use of the angled lighting like that (I use this alot with macro/flowers) and think it adds an awesome 3d look to the subject. Blown highlights work for me on this one because it shows where the light source is coming from. Blown highlights out front....properly exposed in the middle and underexposed to the rear.....all that adds dimension. I love the black and white on this as well.

rufus5150 · Mar 3, 2009

Thanks, Nate. Appreciate the feedback.

Big Mike · Mar 3, 2009

Great shot. I don't think the highlights are a problem because there is detail on many of the other petals so I don't mind the loss of detail on those few. The lines are great because they lead the eye in and out of the flower without letting it wander out of the image. The sharp contrast and the shallow DOF work well together. Well done.