Hmm! Not sure about this one Chris. The bottom has a bit too much of the dark thing going on, making it very bottom 'heavy', In the absence of light the red is all but lost and all we have to rely on are the shapes, and this one is a bit cluttered.
So I think looking for a more 'ordered' series of poppies, or a single one, might be a better option, and even trying to put the poppy in front of the moon and get some backlighting. Obviously into loooong exposures so potential for movement from wind. Which might be nice.
For me I think the use of the moon is great, but it needs to look like the moon, rather than looking as if it could be the sun grossly underexposed, which means catching it when it's low on the horizon earlier in the evening still with some detail in it.
How about a really under powered flash at a low angle, pointing up, from the direction of the moon. That way the translucent red of the poppy may make it through to the final image.
Probably take a couple of heads Tom - stronger one for backlighting, and another for frontal with some feathering or flagging to stop the foreground burning out. With careful balancing it might be possible to reduce the overexposure on the moon too. Or could use shaped video lighting at a low skimming angle to enhance the moon light - might need to watch for flare on that tho'.
Thanks for your thoughts. I agree with most of the suggestions particularly trying to get the moon to look more like . . . well . . . the moon!
Re Tom's flash suggestion; I'd not thought of that approach, largely because I wanted the shot to have a night-time feel. I guess the 'bottom-heavy' effect would be relieved by a burst of flash but would it still feel like night?
Love this idea Chris, its always great to experiment and this is novel and nearly there, agree with a lot of the comments above, heres a little suggestion how about reshooting as a stitched panoramic and losing the bottom altogether, might work with a smidgen flash? well done for thinking out of the box though
an interesting shot Chris and a 'nearly' shot for me. Some good suggestions re. the use of flash but I think just recomposing so that there was less dark 'land' in the shot would help, particularly if the moon were higher in the sky. Cropping the above shot to halve the dark strip makes quite a big improvement to me.
Discussion
8 repliesI make a conscious decision not just to post my 'best' images here; I experiment a lot in order to work towards a 'final' image I have in mind.
To that end then, here is another poppy image making use of an unusual light source. Any comments? Good and bad welcomed alike.
Cheers
Chris
1Ds3, 16-35 mm, ISO 100, 6 secs @ f/2.8, tripod, mirror up + timer release, full frame.
I quite like this one its moody and you can tell what they are, there is also still some colour in the poppys
I would lose the stray stem on the top left hand side though
So I think looking for a more 'ordered' series of poppies, or a single one, might be a better option, and even trying to put the poppy in front of the moon and get some backlighting. Obviously into loooong exposures so potential for movement from wind. Which might be nice.
For me I think the use of the moon is great, but it needs to look like the moon, rather than looking as if it could be the sun grossly underexposed, which means catching it when it's low on the horizon earlier in the evening still with some detail in it.
Keep ploughing this creative furrow!
Probably take a couple of heads Tom - stronger one for backlighting, and another for frontal with some feathering or flagging to stop the foreground burning out. With careful balancing it might be possible to reduce the overexposure on the moon too. Or could use shaped video lighting at a low skimming angle to enhance the moon light - might need to watch for flare on that tho'.
Re Tom's flash suggestion; I'd not thought of that approach, largely because I wanted the shot to have a night-time feel. I guess the 'bottom-heavy' effect would be relieved by a burst of flash but would it still feel like night?
Cheers for your input.
Chris
Matt