Another favorite from the archives. Taken at sunrise in Ponemah Bog in NH, these grass pinks stand out against the leatherleaf and other plants in the bog. I didn’t set out to offset them this much, but the composition demanded it because there were others around that would have been distractions. In the end I like the more empty area, as if the flowers are looking into the distance. No color sliders were hurt during the making of this photo. If you’ve ever seen them, you know how eye-poppingly pink they are.
Specific Feedback Requested
That negative space has grown on me, but fresh perspectives are welcomed.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Tripod
Legacy Olympus Zuiko 65-200 mm f/4 zoom lens @ f/5.6, but no idea of mm setting.
Lr processed for a crop and some wb adjustment - the greens were way too warm, but this looks about right. Some sharpening & texture, maybe a touch of clarity. Curves adjustment as well. Then into Photoshop for some heavy clone stamping work that I hope looks smooth and natural. I think I may have used a TK soft glow as well.
Greens are gremlins in digital capture – or more correctly in raw converter’s ideas about reality. Whatever you did looks good to me. I don’t know the plant but it’s striking and the composition works for me because of the focus falloff toward the UR that balances the flower. Makes it look very determined to hold its own in the environment.
Thanks much. I really got lucky with this little scene. I agree about the green channel, @Diane_Miller - it’s almost as problematic as red. I think that I changed to a flatter profile to start over with this image. It was taken with an older DSLR and I have no idea what the settings were in terms of scene capture mode. Since eyeing my shots with new understanding, I’m thinking about changing up some of my baseline settings in the G9 to keep greens and other color channels more subdued to start with.
I keep my in-camera profiles to “standard” or “neutral” in order to have the most accurate JPEG, not for colors but to evaluate overexposed whites as much as possible, from blinkies and the histogram, which isn’t all that accurate, but the best I can do in real time. That also affects colors in the electronic viewfinder, but I’m only using it for composition and exposure. A raw converter will use that profile (or one of its choosing, such as Adobe Color) as a starting point and it can be changed non-destructively.
I’m getting to this party late, but better than never.
I agree with you on the amount of negative space, and it moves the narrative of the image away from the single plant to include where it lives. The inclusion of the seed head from the previous year is also a plus.
It’s great that no color sliders were hurt. I pushed one too far once, and the outcome wasn’t couthy.
Late, but much appreciated, Paul. Seems a lot of my images (and probably others’ too) are falling through the cracks. I have to find a better way to view things here. Or be less lazy.
The seed head is nice and a bonus, but one I couldn’t do anything about since it was too far away to move.
