I took this photo in a nature preserve not far from home. It was photographed using ambient light that filtered through the tree canopy. You can see some shadow cast on the lower leaves. The fern was surrounded plants scattered sporadically as well as black. After a playing with different ideas for the BG and with great deal of thought I decided to clone out all of the other plant life for a black BG.
I recently had this photo printed for a small local nature competition. I tried something different for me. I printed it with a 2" white boarder and a black pencil line around the photo. It placed second.
Specific Feedback Requested
Love to hear feedback on the composition, post processing and how I had it printed.
Technical Details
Canon 5D IV | EF 100 Macro | f8 | 1/100 | ISO 400 | 100mm
Post Processing ACR and Photoshop
Oh ferns are so great, aren’t they? I’ve done something similar with a fern over water - taking down the background to or nearly black works great for the most part. My only issue is with OOF the ferns on the left toward the back - the ends look unnaturally masked. The detail in the crisp parts is really nice. You could play with some color or luminosity masking to bring out more texture and contour in that part if you wanted.
Gorgeous tonalities and a beautiful subject! But I see what @Kris_Smith referred to. Depending on how you masked it, pretty easy to fix with a softer brush to soften the edges of the mask. I could feel more comfortable with a little added canvas on the top.
Though my family and friends often tire of them, I will forever love a nice photograph of a fern. This is so well-done, especially with the black background to help the ferns stand out so clearly. I love the manner in which the secondary fern fades into the darkness behind it - you could probably enhance that a bit by gradually darkening the leaves a bit more as it falls into black.
