Foxglove w/repost

Craig,

I love the conversion of the stem in this. The detail and the shapes of both the stem and the space it cuts out are fascinating to me. The same applies to the leaves. I'm not sure about the blooms. I haven't seen this plant in the wild but from a purely processing standpoint I might be inclined to bring up the whites a bit. I'd probably also clone out the barely visible parts of the bloom? hanging below the main blooms in a couple of places.

Regardless, I like this very much as posted.

pat

I think the comp. is good. My personal preference would be to see the color in the image. I am not a big fan of B&W.

Craig, regarding B&W I agree with Pat's comments. I would also love to see the color image.

Pat: I appreciate the feedback. Foxglove occurs in many hues from nearly white to dark lavender, with light to dark pinks predominating in my neck of the woods. This particular stem has blossoms that are pale pink and white. I have already bumped up the whites--when I bumped them higher than this, much of the detail was lost, including the raindrops. I agree that the background light patches need to go; this apparently happened when I brought the highlights back up.

Richard: thanks for the thumbs up regarding the comp; as for your preference for color, well, this image is what it is, in this case, black and white. I am hoping to have it evaluated on that basis as it is a photographic medium that I very much admire and am looking to improve in.

Craig:
I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of B&W images and IMO they are more challenging than color images. Like Pat, I like the graphical shapes and texture of the leaves and stem. The blooms has less texture and tonal range and overall looks 'flat' . May be selectively bumping up the contrast of the bloom may help. Just my 2c.

this is really nice. I never think of b&w for floral compositions but this has opened my eyes to new possibilities. This is a strong image very well done. I like it a lot

Craig: I almost did a double take when I opened this because I have an almost identical color image. I'll defer to Pat's critique regarding the conversion but I certainly like the comp and subject. Nicely done.>=))>

Craig, I like how you have captured most of the tones here on a nice slanted composition . I like it when anyone aligns the sensor parallel to the plane of the subject - you have done that here.

I don't see pure whites in the tonality but then perhaps it was not there in the original subject. I think pure whites might have made this more appealing with full range of contrast.

Yep, approaching fine art with this one.

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