Little yellow Oregon sunshine flowers. My wife and I love chasing the wildflowers during Spring and early Summer here in Oregon. We came across this impressive patch of yellow Oregon sunshine flowers (Eriophyllum lanatum) next to a burned area in the Mt Hood National Forest.
When this sun hits them they glow a bright yellow and beg to be enjoyed.
I created some close up macros and a few wider photos of the whole patch, but I think that I like the shots that I made at ground level inside the flowers.
Specific Feedback Requested
This is a photo that I liked once I returned home and started to look them over. These flowers are in full force right now and I’m going to go back and spend some more time with them. This is a large patch with some cool vertical snags behind them, so there are a lot of ways that they can be photographed, but I wanted to put this one in particular up for critique to see if it could be improved.
Should the DOF be narrower or wider? Maybe an adjustment of the POV? What do you think?
Technical Details
I took this with my Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens at f/5. Virtually no processing although I did pull the highlights down a bit to recover some detail and brought the shadows up to create a more bright, soft image.
This is beautiful and artistic. I like the narrow plane of focus very much. Another shot could be taken with you lower down in the flowers to make everything more yellow overall (I’m sure you did this). And yet another would place the group of focused blooms to the left (or right) rather than centrally. One small suggestion: crop out perhaps the flower in focus cut in half by the right edge. But overall, this is one I wish I’d taken!
This is a beautiful find and capture Gary! These pretty yellow flowers are well named. This is a very bright and cheerful image. The narrow DOF works very well here. Well done!
Hi Gary, wonderful, dreamy image, that conveys a feeling of lying in a summer meadow without a care in the world. I think the DoF as presented works really well and I really like the sweep of the in-focus flowers and soft treatment of the light. I’m with @Mike_Friel about a crop in from the right slightly, to remove the in-focus flower at the edge. I also think cropping in a little from the top helps the visual flow through the in-focus portion of the image, and removes a slightly distracting bit of stem in the upper left half. To my eyes at least (which admittedly are tired right now) it looks like there’s a patch of purple/magenta extending from the bottom towards the main in-focus flowers. I threw in a quick brush in LR with a little green and it seems to even out that area compared with the rest. Including the slight changes I made here. Lovely scene, I’d go back here and spend more time if I could too!
Lovely delicate flowers Gary, and the bokeh here emphasizes that nicely. This has a dreamy quality to it.I like the crop option that @Jack_Krohn posted; it helps center the eye on the in-focus area. I really like the way the out-of-focus framing helps emphasize the central stars.
Gary, I love the soft Summery feel in this image. I agree with all the suggestions from he others. I would also add some negative clarity to the more in focus flowers on the bottom left. Lovely image.
@Mike_Friel@Jack_Krohn Thank you. I cropped it in from the right and down at the top as per your and Jack’s suggestion. I also warmed up that cooer area as well as another at the right side. That was the soil.
@AndreDonawa Thank you. I softened the flowers in the lower left corner. I agree that they brought some attention to the apparent subjects of the photos.
I like it, well, the idea of it, but could do with fewer flowers in the foreground. The overall impression is nice, but a bit scattered since the DOF is so narrow. Gorgeous sage green though and I like how those were handled. Very cheerful.
DoF is perfect, IMO, though you could certainly play with this. However, I personally like the framing the blurred flowers on the bop and bottom provided, though I could see adding a gradient to maybe darken the blurred areas a bit to add additional focus to the in-focus areas.
On the larger version there is a black bug on the petal of one of the in-focus flowers near the center.
@Tony_Kuyper Hi Tony. Thank you for the critique. I appreciate it. This gives me something to play with. I value your opinion. I’m glad that you looked close enough to see the interloper.
I hope to go back out again asap.
