Pickerelweed

I was taken by these flowers in the wetland, but could never get subject isolation. I was playing with selections and curves and hit on this…and quite liked it. It has an “in studio” quality, but I like the hints of broader context in the foreground reeds.

Specific Feedback Requested

Any and all comment welcomed, thanks for looking.

Technical Details

ISO 250; f8.0; 1/200 sec; 81mm aps-c

1 Like

Neat! I don’t often find pickerelweed so isolated. The light is really nice and it looks like you got the plane of focus to include as many of the flowers and leaves as you could, but the sharpness seems off. There are odd bits of color coming through in the leaves - green here, purple there, which leads me to believe you had a B&W layer painted onto a color layer. The foreground, while darkened, is still catching my attention. Perhaps some cloning there? And I’d try for more separation of the tones in the range - either with luminosity masking or color masking. It’s a bit dark so raising the whites could help with bringing more of the drama you’re after. Definitely has some potential. A really nice grouping.

Thanks for the feedback - I definitely need to clean up my mask-by-painting and will look into luminosity masks. Thanks again

I very much like the in-studio quality here. It’s obviously not in a studio, which adds to it appeal. The comp and light are very nice, though it feels a bit on the warm side to me. A more cool tone seems like it might work here.