Portrait of a Lady Slipper (revised version added to the top)

Image Critiques Flora Critiques
1

Lady's Slipper Liquify-3
Lady's Slipper Liquify-31365Ă—2048 1010 KB

Revised Lady Slipper-3.jpg
Revised Lady Slipper-3.jpg1365Ă—2048 1.16 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

There is a park along a small river in Bozeman that has a very popular swimming pond complete with volleyball courts and picnic tables. On a hot summer day, this place is quite crowded. In contrast to this, is a very quiet nature trail that meanders through a dense forest of Aspen, Willow, Cottonwood and Alder Trees. It is a haven for Mosquitos which makes it a little less inviting than the swimming hole. Hidden on a bend at the very back of the park, a fairly rare Montana native has found a place to thrive. This is a Small Yellow Lady’s Slipper not to be confused with the Mountain Lady’s Slippper which is white where this one is yellow.

Specific Feedback

I’m pretty happy with the stack on this one. There is a little fuzziness where I masked the flower from the background and vice-versa.

Technical Details

Nikon D850
Sigma 105mm Macro
ISO 400, f/5, 1/20th sec

49 Images stacked in Helicon Focus, Method C, Smoothing 9
Processed in Lightroom with a variety of masks for the foreground and the background. I also use a radius mask to give it a slight vignette. I like the wider feather I am able to achieve with this and that I can rotate it to match the subject.

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1 Like
3

I love the lighting in this image, Paul, and the stack looks very good. The one minor issue I have is the pale out of focus plant in the background that intersects the curve of the upper petal. It tends to pull my eye right out of the frame to the right.

4

Great light and colors, and very interesting subject/natural history of this unique plant Paul. I agree with @Sandy_Richards-Brown that the balance is a bit off somehow, and wonder if it would help to actually have a bit more space up top to push the main featured “slipper” attraction down just a bit in the frame. I can see @Dennis_Plank point on the lighter leaf on the side, but it doesn’t really bother me too much.

5

@Sandy_Richards-Brown @Dennis_Plank @Ed_Williams I undid all the crops I had done. I had tried to get the flower moved to the left a bit, but had lost some stem in the process. Then I remembered the Liquify Filter in Photoshop so I used that to slide the flower to the left instead.I didnt like the way it was facing the right AND was sort of on the right side of center. For fear of damaging other plants, I was not able to move the tripod for better composition in the field. I do like the changes you all suggested! Thank you! I added the revision at the top.

6

Nice job on the revision, Paul.

1 Like