I was impressed with John Williams recent posting of Poppies and Basalt. Being in the Columbia Gorge yesterday I had a chance to try out a new camera (upgraded to canon 40D from 20D.) I love the feel of the different textures in this image and lighting on the basalt.
Canon 40D, EFS 17-85mm (FL 81) F/5.6 1/100 ISO 200
Photoshop-neat image, minor tweeking exposure, light/contrast, curves, sharpen
Craig, Too much information! I'd say to a crop from all sides and focus on the middle. There is a lot of nice stuff to look at but I want YOU to focus my eye on the meat of the photo.
In my creative writing class in high school, the teachers used to say, use as few words as you can, then reread it and cut 30% of the words again. Meaning, FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS! (and not in the blurry/sharp sense). Every piece of the photo should contribute to the final product.
Congrats on the new camera Craig, looks like your putting it to good use!
My taste would be for a bit more saturation in the photo. I'm guessing you'd have to be careful to not blow the saturation of the flowers, but a bit of a bump might look good here (maybe through a saturation mask?).
I think Mark is dead-on in his comments. I was fortunate to shoot the poppies I posted about as I composed them, but looking at other shots from that day I'm finding quite a few where I like them better with a bit of cropping to focus just as Mark notes.
One final comment, if you could have reached it and it wouldn't hurt anything, would be to have removed the dead stalk/branch that touches the right-hand flower to even more focus the eye on the flowers.
Discussion
7 repliesCanon 40D, EFS 17-85mm (FL 81) F/5.6 1/100 ISO 200
Photoshop-neat image, minor tweeking exposure, light/contrast, curves, sharpen
I welcome your comments and suggestions!
REPOST
In my creative writing class in high school, the teachers used to say, use as few words as you can, then reread it and cut 30% of the words again. Meaning, FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS! (and not in the blurry/sharp sense). Every piece of the photo should contribute to the final product.
My taste would be for a bit more saturation in the photo. I'm guessing you'd have to be careful to not blow the saturation of the flowers, but a bit of a bump might look good here (maybe through a saturation mask?).
I think Mark is dead-on in his comments. I was fortunate to shoot the poppies I posted about as I composed them, but looking at other shots from that day I'm finding quite a few where I like them better with a bit of cropping to focus just as Mark notes.
One final comment, if you could have reached it and it wouldn't hurt anything, would be to have removed the dead stalk/branch that touches the right-hand flower to even more focus the eye on the flowers.