Winter plants have been a staple in my photography for some time and they are perfect for the kind of minimalism only winter can give you. Tiny aster flowers against the snow are irresistible to me and to whatever made off with all the seeds! IRL these are about 1 cm across.
Specific Feedback Requested
Initial impressions and any ideas for processing or work in the field. There are tons of these all over including up and down the driveway.
Technical Details
Handheld
Lr for a bit of exposure and boosting of whites and shadows, kept highlights high and reduced blacks a little. Square crop. Texture & clarity. Masked for background and brought exposure up even more. A bit of sharpening.
Ps for some distraction removal and some work with masks in the TK8 panel to bring up the delicacy in the flowers.
Hi Kris
Wonderful image and well executed with the selective DOF falling off near the snow surface, the dark browns graduating to the yellows and on to the off whites as well as the slight texture really makes this work!
Love the title, too!
I really like it as is but I would be tempted to crop it a bit more to reduce the amount of white, the white seems to outweigh the autumn colors, it seems a bit out of balance to me (if that makes sense).
Hey Kris, this is wonderful. I love the white background (snow) that really highlights and frames the flowers. I think @Merv’s crop brings the flowers more to their center as the subject, but I also like the larger bit of negative space you have in the original.
Either way, looking forward to seeing more of your winter minimalism.
Thanks @Merv & @David_Bostock - the crop was making me crazy with this one. I have done about Eleventy billion of them and none seem right. I deliberately left a wider field than usual to get some reactions and leave me room to maneuver. I will play with it again.
I am just enjoying this image as presented, Kris. I love the oof dried flowers in the ULC and the beautifully detailed flowers in the center. As far as the crop goes, works for me as it gives these tiny flowers room to breath. Nicely seen.
Gorgeous!! I love the details, and this one is perfect for not being stacked. I had to take a stab at a crop and my first instinct put the flower in the LR at a point of thirds. That’s a rule I love breaking but in this case it felt right. The OOF part at the top border felt too heavy so I lightened it with a quick masked curve and some lowered saturation. I went even further with some low-opacity cloning to soften the darkest part of that flower on the left.
I too think that this is absolutely wonderful and personally I like your loose crop with all of that negative space. I think it really suits the subject.
Thanks @linda_mellor, @Diane_Miller & @Tom_Nevesely - negative space is something I agonize over when I try deliberately to use it. I really like the treatment you gave this, Diane. I wondered about that top part, but you’ve softened it without it looking too weird as all my attempts did. Since I always forget about the opacity slider when cloning, that was probably it. So may things to keep track of!
I love the composition, Kris. The depth is really seen well here with the sharp focus in front and how the rest gets softer in the URC. Bringing up that background helped the contrast. I wondered as well about the space and cropping some of it. However I think it adds to the competition giving a directional look to the photo. The subject is the plant but there is the story too I am thinking.
