The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
In a damp glade under the shelter of towering Fir Trees, The forest floor is coming alive! Tendrils of new growth are sprouting up everywhere. Decades of decaying plants and trees have created a plush mattress for a fantastic flower bed. Here, a Glacier Lily and a Calypso Orchid share the plentiful nutrients offered by the forest. There is even the tiniest of Fir Trees at the very beginning of its journey to the clouds. Hiding under a dew covered web at the base of the Orchid, there is Spider laying in wait for the Ant that is barely visible on top of the Glacier Lily. It is stunning to sit and observe just how much there is to see in just a few square feet forest.
Specific Feedback
I spent some time in Helicon Focus retouching the overlapping elements in the foreground. There are still some blurry areas, but overall, I don’t think it’s too distracting.
Technical Details
Nikon D850
Sigma 105 mm macro
ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/25th second
46 images stacked in Helicon Focus. Processed in Lightroom Classic CC
Paul, your image brings me some serenity and peace. I like the story you told both with the photo and text. I kept going back to look at your image and spending more time enjoying what I was looking at.
The blurry areas you bring up do not distract at all. I think they are just fine. I find this a very well-edited image. I only have two suggestions I would like to make. The first involves adding a little more space on the top. I’m thinking that about twice as much room on the top would really make the image stronger with its double pals. The second suggestion could be solved by addressing the first. The vignette is coming across as very strong and partially obscuring the top of the Glacier Lily. If more space is added to the top, the vignette may not be an issue at all. Anyway, it is only a suggestion if I were editing the photo. You did a wonderful edit on this beautiful image. I do love the tiny fir included in the scene.
A miniature garden of Eden!! And there must be a million more nearby, but you did a wonderful job presenting this one, with the two companions and their friends enjoying the day! Processing looks just fine to me – who wants to pixel peep for glitches that don’t jump out! I think @EgĂdio has a good idea about a little more room on top, but certainly not a major issue.
These kind of forest floor images are some of my favorites. I call them microscapes and used to do a lot of them about 10-15 years ago. I still kind of do, but not in as dedicated a fashion. This is an excellent example with very good placement of the flowers and composition (simplification) of the scene.
Glacier lilies must be very closely related to Trout lilies - only the leaves appear different here. And that you caught it with an orchid is really special. The color contrast works well & I love the tiny seedlings (another favorite subject for me).
The blurry areas where the stack didn’t quite come out right are only apparent if you’re really looking. It’s a shared nemesis! I don’t mind the close to the top presentation, but the vignette is a bit heavy for my taste. What I sometimes do instead of creating a classic vignette is to make one out of color and light.
I’ll use a pair of radial filters, one normal and one inverted, and do a couple of things - take down the clarity/contrast, exposure and saturation in the inverted one. This is the vignette and I find it a more subtle way to highlight a subject. For the normal vignette which is for the subject, I will sometimes do the opposite of the inverted one. If you have the TK8 panel you can do something similar there with Freehand vignette & Spotlight actions.
Just some thoughts. I’m a big fan of this shot and I like what you’re bringing to the Flora category. Makes my Editor’s Picks a real challenge with so many excellent photos.
Paul, it’s so neat that you found these two together. They make a fine pairing, that stands out well in this view. The blurring where the two leaves overlap (on the right), comes from a law of optics, that you know well as a photographer… When something in front goes out of focus, it occupies a larger space. That means that the blurring seen in a stack when you have two overlapping sharp areas, but can’t get them both sharp in a single frame cannot be avoided. It can be largely fixed in post processing using some finely detailed cloning.
