Another wildflower landscape from our trip last month on Sonora Pass. If you take a look at Preston’s image posted a few days back, my image here contains the same set of lupine at the bottom. We had scouted this meadow the night before and have photographed here many times over the years - been a very beautiful and productive area for me. The next morning we got a late start and had less than 30 minutes before the sun would come blaring in. Preston and I photographed this independently, not knowing what each other had composed. Yet another example of how we all see things differently despite being presented with the same scene.
We had commented the day before about the expanse of the plants in the meadow and I wanted to capture that “sea of corn lilies” and lupine. I usually focus on the more intimate details, but liked the expanse here.
As always, your feedback, comments and critique always welcome.
You two certainly had a successful outing with this field. This more distant view looks good to me and is well constructed. As with Preston’s image it’s the richness of the colors that make it for me. No nits from me on this one.
Overall I love the image. I find corn lily (aka false hellebore and a bunch of other common names) to be an enticing yet challenging subject pulling way back as you’ve done is one good solution. My only nits are that the yellow flowers in the upper left corner kind of bug me a little, and the color cast seems a bit unnaturally cyan, which is not doing anything extra for me with this image. But my bet is that some others may love the color balance here so…
I love the pattern created among the highlights in the corn lilies. Its just mesmerizing. I normally like a warmer color balance, but here I think it works really well with the cool colors.
Jim - thanks for your honest feedback. I originally mentioned and it’s true, greens are tough! The remake may have gone too far yellow/green… Then again, seeing one without the other and perhaps either one will work…
Thanks for the comment as well about the yellow flowers up top. Funny, I cropped the original to remove a bunch of the yellow flowers - but then the remaining few became maybe? more of a distraction. The repost is pretty much full frame, If I recall, I’ll have to look at the raw
And for a real bad pun, the title was kinda “corny”… I changed it…
I prefer that original green to the more yellowish kind. Once you’ve seen the old Sierra Club calendar renditions with that green you fall in love with it and always want Corn Lily greens to look like it.
I personally like the yellow flowers up top. Crop them out and the image becomes simpler and less interesting.
Lon,
You two guys killed it on your last trip as this is another beauty. I am thoroughly enjoying the depth of this intimate landscape you captured. You managed to fill to frame rather nicely with the lupines, and corn lillies along with the yellow wild flower(no idea on the ID). As far as color balance I prefer the warmer version, but that is just a personal preference as I am sure others will prefer the cooler version. Either way you have another winner.
Lon, this is a great look at this field of fresh flowers and plants. The texture in the Corn Lilies is terrific and you got the flowers scattered nicely throughout with good emphasis at the bottom and top. The color difference is quite striking, with either set of tones looking good. I do prefer the extra flowers at the top of the warm version and it has a nice glow throughout.
It’s interesting we found completely different images from basically the same position.
I like both versions, Lon. However, I am leaning toward a color balance between the two versions. I prefer the composition of the original because the yellow flowers at the top of the second image are too tight to the top edge for me.
You got some real nice images from our trip. I love that place!
-P
I usually like warmer color balanced images. However with this one, for some reason, those mesmerizing light patterns in the corn lilies seem to disappear in the warmer version. And I agree with @Preston_Birdwell on the crop. The flowers in the second version are now much to close to the edge. If that flower in the ULC is a bother, best to clone it out than crop.
As far as the title is concerned, might I make a few suggestions?
The specific species here in California is the Veratrum Californicum. It is in the Family of False Hellebore.
So might I suggest a play on those names? Veratrum Flames or Flames of Hellebore. As the leaves and highlights in them remind of flames.
Lon, I’m coming in late here, but much prefer the rework, for the reasons already mentioned by the others. In the rework, the greens have so much more vitality and vibrance. I also like darkening the blues of the lupines. In the original image the lighter blue lupines stand out as the subject to my eye, and the corn lilies recede. In the rework the opposite is true for me, the corn lilies advance and become the subject, and the lupine recede and become a secondary element. Given the beautiful colors and shapes of the corn lilies in the rework, there is no question in my mind they are the star of this show, and the rework emphasizes them better.
@Ed_McGuirk - thank you for your very insightful and observant comments. Even I, as the photographer didn’t appreciate the scene in this way - simply a change in hue could change the perception, and importance of whether or not one element was more prominent than another… Thank you for this.
