The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is the second year this orchid has bloomed for me, and I’m a disaster with plants. This flower had just opened the night before and by the next day it was fully open. I managed to get it in some window light with a black card behind it.
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Focus stack with slight global tonal corrections in LR; then the stacked result denoised in PS and some artifacts cleaned up.
Critique Template
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Beautiful focus stack, Diane, and I like the framing and black background. Is it the actual flower color or is there just a bit of green color cast to this?
Diane: I kind of laughed when you said you got this one to bloom for you and that you’re a disaster with plants. My wife Chrissy has an incredible green thumb for everything but orchids! Perhaps you could share your secret.
Beautiful bloom. I’m also seeing the green cast that @Dennis_Plank mentioned. Knowing that these orchids are normally pure white perhaps raised my suspicions but I think I may have seen some that do have a light green tint. I might be tempted to take the BG pure black as @glennie noted the variations. Thanks for posting, Flora has been pretty quiet lately. Come on spring.>=))>
Thanks, @Dennis_Plank, @Gill_Vanderlip, @glennie and @Bill_Fach! I’m usually so careful with dark BGs and opened the original to fix it, but all I’m seeing is a lighter brownish area in the UR corner and a hint of the stem, going horizontally behind the throat. There is a slightly darker area on that stem at the left edge of the frame that I have now cloned to match. Is that what you’re seeing? Maybe I should bring it out a bit or subdue it completely.
I had a look at the dark areas by making a temporary Curves on top of the stack and pulled the UR corner way left to lighten everything drastically. I do that when cloning, too – a handy trick.
The color is accurate. The buds are a light warmish green on the outside – the three sepals you see here. Their faces fade to white by the next day or so but they keep a slight yellow-green tint on the back. The blush of yellow in the throat remains as the flower matures.
Bill, here’s my humble “secret” that I found after years of failure. After blooms fade on a gifted one (typically adopted from Whole Foods) I repot in an old-fashioned terra cotta pot with orchid mix and once a week (maybe 2 weeks in our humid winters) soak it and let it drain. Feed when watering. This is the first one I managed to keep alive and two more have now joined it. The older of them, from last year, is putting out a bloom shoot. The younger, from this year, is still in intensive care.
But a friend has several very large pots with plants maybe 4 ft tall with huge flower-laden stems. I need to borrow some fairy dust from her.
