Dune Life

Image Critiques Flora Critiques
1

My wife and I took a quick overnight trip to Pacific Grove on the Monterey Penninsula. My second favorite place. Specifically, spent some time at the Asilomar State beach and the dune preserve there. Several acres of preserved, living dunes. One of the best constructed boardwalks I’ve ever seen and gladly kept to it’s confines - plenty of subject matter right at one’s feet. the day was cool, a little breezy and the classic Pacific marine layer was overhead making for some soft light.

You all know flowers and flora in general are not my expertise (actually, I don’t know what is…) So of course when I got home I had to research the plant. This is called the “Beach Sand Verbena” and no, not related to the garden variety Verbena. You know, one of the beautiful things about combining nature and photography is the learning and the education. Before this weekend, I knew nothing of the flowering plant. Now I do. In fact, I learned a very interesting and fascinating fact:

“Seeds of beach sand verbena were first collected in 1786 by a French expedition charged with continuing the Pacific explorations of Captain Cook. Seeds were shipped back to Europe where they were grown and studied by the pioneer biologist Jean-Baptiste Lemarck. Beach sand verbena thus became the very first California flower known to science.”

And there you go.

Thanks for any comments or feedback!

49D2_1510HCR_1500
49D2_1510HCR_15001500×1139 1020 KB

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

Any/all. Straight forward processing, nothing too elaborate. Slight cropping and edge cleanup

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Looking to show more of the environment, the dune life, rather than just the flowering part. Does this work for you? These were mostly found in larger clusters, but found this one all by itself.

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

(If the background has been replaced, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)

Nikon D7100 16-85mm @72mm (105mm with crop factor) f/16 1/80th iso 200

2

Lon, I have to say the photo was an immediate draw for me as I thought you’d taken this in one of our desert areas. With that said I was unaware of the beach variety of the verbena plant. Probably one of the very few wild growing or for that matter domestic plants I recognize by name…:sunglasses:

Beyond making the point about knowing the name I can only add that I like it as presented. All aspects of the technical side appear to be spot on to me…:+1:

3

I had the same reaction as Paul, I thought it was a desert verbena. Nicely composed and processed and the image looks quite nice.

4

Lon: I especially like your comp and the subject and proportion of subject to frame. I agree with you about the discovery part of photography and appreciate your narrative. You need to look down more often :wink:. Most excellent :+1::+1:>=))>

5

Lon I really like how you included so much of this flower. This environmental type shot is much more compelling to me than simple portrait of just the flower would have been. The ability to isolate this single flower simplifies the image (but I do like that negative space filler of the leaves above the flower). This is nice clean and simple, and very effective. I too would have guessed this was from the desert rather than the seashore.

6

The light sand and placement angle you have chosen work well to accentuate the flower and its environment. Nicely seen and captured.

7

Lon. Thank you for the information on this plant. I agree that one of the pluses of nature photography is learning more about the plants, birds and other things we discover. Well done portrait of this plant!

8

Lon, great eye to see this nice little scene. The flower is set off nicely against the textured sand. I know it would be extremely tedious but I would clone out some of the dark matter. JMHO
:vulcan_salute:

9

Redo|689x500 . I love the light! I like the idea of capturing more of the plant, but I think there is a little too much. I did a crop and did a quick clean up of the background.

Don