It was raining today at the arboretum in Korea. The light was therefore very muted, and I didn’t have to worry about glare. A good time to catch the colours and textures of these water-lily leaves, I thought.
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I’m slowly getting to know my 1980’s Pentax lens. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to crop this shot by 75% and still not spoil it. That said, please let me know if you spot any unusual blemishes, as the old lenses, I am told, can sometimes sit uneasily on the newer digital cameras.
Those leaves! I love them. None of the northern species here grow that big or turn upward at the edges so it’s nice to see. Not sure about the golden yellow hue overall. There’s a bit of darker, cooler green in the ULC so I’m not sure which is the prevailing color. You could have a go at maybe darkening the pools of water a bit to help them stand out. Maybe just even work the color hue to something cooler to do that. Could be a cool effect. Luminosity or color masking will probably work to isolate them.
The lens looks good edge to edge, but I assume this is from the center of the photo. Even wide open it has decent clarity and crispness where you have total focus. The light works really nicely here so yay for rain. The repeating pattern with the one open area is nice. Does the arboretum also host small critters in the various plantings? I could see a wee turtle or frogs having fun on these leaves.
An amazing capture! The lily pads are gorgeous, and so clean! Our species are not nearly this pretty, and my karma is that the nicer a composition I can find, the dirtier the leaves. I think @Kris_Smith has a good idea about playing with WB. The new camera and lens is looking great! Hope to see lots more!
@Mike_Friel This is a wonderful subject and composition! Well done. I agree with the other comments about the color balance. The lily pads look a little unnaturally yellow to me, so you could try a more pure green rendition and see what you think. If you enjoy working in black and white, I could also see this photo working really nicely in a monochrome presentation.
Thanks very much @Kris_Smith , @Diane_Miller and @Sarah_Marino for your valuable comments. I’ve added two reworks above - one in colour, one B and W. For the colour version I readjusted the mid-tones (slider to right) and played around with the Hue/Saturation sliders in PS. Definitely preferable to the yellowish original. Sarah, that’s a great idea to try B and W. It was really the contrast between the dark and pale sections of the leaves which first caught my eye, rather than the colours. (I’m sure I was partly inspired by your “small scenes”, which I first came across at the AMA session). Anyway, I played around with the Yellow and Green sliders in the PS B and W adjustment, and also a little with the mid-tones to get this B and W rework. (Yes Kris, there are turtles; they’re on the waiting list!).
