I made the trip to West Virginia to photograph waterfalls in the Autumn. Precipitation was down, so the waterfalls weren’t at their best. Looking around for something smaller to photograph I found this fern.
To be honest. With the decay and no longer being green, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this subject. Now I wish I had taken the time to shoot a stack.
Specific Feedback Requested
I’m interested in your thoughts on the frond as a subject (state of decay, loss of green color, etc.) Also, composition, WB, saturation, etc.
Note:
…I photographed half of the frond as seen.
…I know that there are technical issues. IE: Focus not all the way through the photo.
Technical Details
Canon 5D Mark IV | f4 | 1/80s |ISO 100 | ef100 Macro
Processed using ACR and Ps
Some other notes for PP:
…The frond was photographed in a horizontal orientation. I rotated it 90° because I feel it makes a better photo.
…I masked the frond and darkened the BG.
…I cropped the bottom, most OOF pinna.
I’ll share a little secret with you: I have tried to photograph lots of different ferns closeup like this, and it is really really hard. The toughest part is knowing where and being able to cut it off without anything coming back in from the edges of the frame. I don’t know if this is perfect, but I cropped off some of the top to try and clean it up a little more, also the fern gradually gets more and more wilted, chewed up towards the top, so I wanted to eliminate some of that for more consistency. I know you mentioned you liked the state of decay, but I am not sure it works in this particular composition, just feels messier/unintentional with it in there on the top edge. Some sort of a crop combined with a little cloning is the main feedback I have for this one.
Apart from that, cooling down the white balance slightly gives it some nice pop and separation form the background. It was just slightly too warm.
