Two of a Kind

I like the composition and the dof decision Christina. On my MacBook monitor the brightest whites look just a tad bright but it might very well be the monitor or my eyes. The apparent separation due to the dof decision between the blooms and the branch interests me. Don't know what your shooting conditions were like but a stack might have let you get a little better detail in the blooms and still keep the branch soft. I like the mood of this very much.

I'm not sure what you mean by "meaningful subjects" but the comment interests me. We don't often touch on semiotic topics in this gallery. Please feel free to elaborate, or not.

pat

I like the simplicity of this picture with just the two flowers and the long branch. IMO cropping more of the top and bottom for a panoramic view may have added interest. Just a thought but the picture also has a certain "mood" just as it is.

Meaningful is probably a poor choice of wording in this case but what I mean to say is interesting compositions, which I found rather difficult to locate on this trip. When I was reviewing the pictures on my computer from this trip I was disappointed in the number of "keepers" I had. Most of the photos were OK but nothing that I would want to display on NPN. For example, the first dogwood tree I found had some great blooms but the backgrounds were troublesome. Every composition I came up with had some sort of distraction. Distractions ranged from the color of the background (which IMO didn't complement the flowers) to OOF blobs of white from other blooms that just were not working with the subject. I also had issues with my DoF working as a distraction is some instances. So my lesson learned from this trip at least for the DoF problem was to use the DoF preview button a lot more often than I do, which I think will fix a least a quarter of my problems. I know this is probably more than what you asked for but I hope this explains a little of what I meant.

Since I'm a novice to macro work could you explain what you mean by stack?

Cristina: Not sure if Pat will revisit but a stack is when you take multiple images of the same subject from the exact same vantage point but adjust the plane of focus slightly for each shot and then combine them in Photoshop or a stacking program like Helicon Focus. Pat is a master at it so if you have specific questions I know he would be glad to help. You mentioned some problems with distracting elements in the BG on a lot of your shots. Do you have a longer lens? As focal length increases the angle of view decreases and its easier to isolate your subject against a portion of the BG that may be smoother. You may have noticed that I do most of my shooting with a 200mm lens even though I also own a 100mm. The narrower angle of view is one reason I prefer the longer lens. I do like your subject matter and will be hunting some of these myself in the next few weeks as the Texas wildflower season starts to heat up. My only compositional suggestion would be to crop this a bit tighter and to 4:5 ratio by eliminating some of the space on the left. That puts your subjects a bit off center and you still have a nice left to right flow with the branch. On my monitor the whites look pretty good. Keep up the good work.>=))>

Christina,

Thank you for the explanation. I appreciate it. I think Bill covered everything else. If you're interested in stacking, you might want to try a demo of the Helicon Focus software. Their site is certainly worth a look. If you have questions about it, I'll be glad to help to the extent that I can.

pat

Nice, simple arrangement. I like it Cristina. I don't see any problem with the white flowers (on my monitor quite good & acceptable). Well done.

Nice subject, dof and BG.

Christina, I am not usually drawn to centered subjects, but I really like this one. It's almost monochromatic, and the white flowers pop. I also like the way the branch is out of focus and the background is even more blurred. Really nice use of shallow depth of field! My only suggestion is to burn down that upper right just a hair ... perhaps -.2 or so with a broad feather.