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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

Flower Shots With Presence!

R

Rachel Foster

New member
Every so often as I glance back through old files, I find something I missed at the time. I took this one over two years ago. I like the bokeh and color mixture on this one.

ISO 400, f/5.0, 1/125 (Rebel XTi).

IMG_3621framed600x400.jpg

Jacob Eliana: Forgotten Iris​
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Rachel,

I missed what you forgot! Great color! Glad you found it. Is it supposed to be soft focus or you decided not to sharpen it?

Asher
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Armed with my newly acquired 8mm Sigma circular fisheye for my Canon 5DII, everywhere I visited, I was testing the camera. Here I stole a shot of a sunflower against the California sky.

_MG_9277-3_Cropped_01 copy.jpg


Asher Kelman: Sunflower at Gigi's

8mm f6.3 1/400 ISO 100 no flash​

I like the increased importance the fisheye gives to the flower!

Asher
 
M

Maris Rusis

Member
Film: soft focus.

5186273942_fcd62b356c_z.jpg
Funeral Bouquet, Artificial Flowers
​
Gelatin-silver photograph on Fomabrom Variant 111 FB VC, image area 24.2cm x 19.5cm, from a Fomapan 200 negative exposed in a Tachihara 810HD triple extension 8x10 view camera fitted with a 400mm single meniscus lens.

Sad, soft, sombre.
 
R

Rachel Foster

New member
Maris, I'm curious as to why you put the table at the angle you did. I'm looking at it in context of the other compositional elements and I'm curious why you made the choice. (I'm asking for edification; no criticism is implied.)
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Maris Rusis said:
5186273942_fcd62b356c_z.jpg
Funeral Bouquet, Artificial Flowers
​
Gelatin-silver photograph on Fomabrom Variant 111 FB VC, image area 24.2cm x 19.5cm, from a Fomapan 200 negative exposed in a Tachihara 810HD triple extension 8x10 view camera fitted with a 400mm single meniscus lens.

Sad, soft, sombre.
Click to expand...

The arrangement is totally soft and has a air of acceptance of fate around it. I can imagine looking at the round white flowers, like an innocent child's face and thinking about our life's journeys.

Just one leaf at the left top rear, really suggests it's "note real. In fact, had you not mentioned anything, i'd have gone with the beauty and that would be that. "What a good outside falsehood hath!? That's so strange for a funeral home. I'd have wanted to see genuine flowers to go with genuine loss.

Still, your portrait of the flowers gets one thinking about whether or not our own lives merit real flowers. I'll make it a point to request "No flowers!" Better folk put their money to something useful!

Asher
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Edward Bussa said:
Unexpected Dandelion - found in a cherry orchard, early spring, I had no idea dandelion detail looked like this...
Click to expand...


art-of-adventure-9.jpg


Ed,

The flower explodes towards us. The best dandelion I've ever seen. So how did you get this? Surely not just a snap, or you were down on your knees with a macro setup?

In any case, this is a great display. How it helps the flower, I don't know as they grow seeds after they stop the growth of the pollen tube and the ova develop to a seed independently. Beautiful craziness!

Asher
 
M

Maris Rusis

Member
Rachel Foster said:
Maris, I'm curious as to why you put the table at the angle you did. I'm looking at it in context of the other compositional elements and I'm curious why you made the choice. (I'm asking for edification; no criticism is implied.)
Click to expand...

The reason for the angle is bluntly pragmatic. Every photograph, if it is to reward a viewer for giving up a few seconds of their life to look at it, should surprise the eye. A simple trope sometimes called a "kicker" can do this. Turning the table a few degrees is a mild "kicker" that doesn't unravel the pathos of the subject.

The principle was put very nicely by Francis Bacon (English philosopher, 1561 - 1626): "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."
 
E

Edward Bussa

Member
Yes. On my knees with an eighteen year old 60mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor left over from my film kit.

The light was bright and diffused from a thickish haze overhead, creating very nice light for this macro work. I paid very close attention to depth of field. I actually began thinking about the DOF in compositional terms rather than depth as there really is no depth that close. I probably spent 45 minutes going from dandy to dandy experimenting with using the shallow DOF in composition.
 
E

Edward Bussa

Member
I don't know if you feel the same, but I find such intense yellow one of the hardest colors to work with - both in getting an exposure that captures the full detail and then extracting the most out of it in post... it must have something to do with it being a complimentary color? Probably the most common pure complimentary color in nature come to think of it...
 
J

Jim Galli

Member
A worthy thread to revive from time to time;

BIS12HyperionF4.jpg

black eye susan​

8X10 studio camera, Gundlach Hyperion lens

This image hangs in my home, printed on AZO
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jim Galli said:
Thanks Rachel.

Asher, I bought wisely, knowing it was coming to a close. I don't have an inexhaustible supply, but I do have a few hundred sheets in the freezer.
Click to expand...

Didn't Michael Smith conjure up a new source? What happened with that story? I found this[ that implies it's indeed available. This is so off topic but we got to know! I know I like him and Paula a lot! Lodima press is a first class print outfit.

Asher
 
J

Jim Galli

Member
Asher Kelman said:
Didn't Michael Smith conjure up a new source? What happened with that story? I found this that implies it's indeed available. This is so off topic but we got to know! I know I like him and Paula a lot! Lodima press is a first class print outfit.

Asher
Click to expand...


Yes. He calls it Lodima which is Amidol spelled backwards. It's sort of expensive and I've never tried any of it.

I'm using a paper out of Russia that our friends at Freestyle have in stock. It's called Slavich. I get the grade 3 fiber base glossy and I'm getting as pretty of prints as I've ever seen from my darkroom.
 
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