Seeing as how the month of May is almost at an end, I was running out of time to use that rather classic title. This photograph you see is one that was presented during my photography exhibition of last October. It was taken in my mom's garden a few years back and remains my favourite photograph of a flower than I have ever taken. It's an Orange Daylily, and if I may say so, I think it looks spectacular. I took this photograph with a 60mm Macro lens, which I try to use anytime I'm taking pictures of flowers. I love the magnifying effect of the macro lens as it can pick up even the smallest of details. Case in point being the pieces of pollen on the filaments and anthers of the flower. For those of you watching from home, yes, I did have to look those terms up. I believe the term I would have used before would have been 'the stuff that makes me sneeze'. Getting back to the photograph, the other aspect of using a Macro lens that I love is how well it throws the background out of focus. I've always liked having blurred backgrounds when taking pictures of flowers because it allows my background to still be colourful and interesting, but takes nothing away from the foreground. Another way to achieve a blurred background is to
use a wide aperture, which I also did on this shot. The photograph was taken at f/5, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 60mm. Speaking of backgrounds, those of you who have
been following me here of late have learned that I've taken to playing a little more with Photoshop these days. Nothing that wild and out there, but more along the line of playing with colours. With that in mind, I've included a different version of the same photograph here for you to see. I used the Colour Balance tool and just put the Blue, Magenta and Cyan colours each to their maximum. Do I think it's a better photo? No, I still like the original better. I do, however, think that the new version is interesting. I like the blue background and I think the new colour mixture brings out a bit more texture in the petals of the flower. I guess that I'll leave the final decision to you so to which photograph you like more.
use a wide aperture, which I also did on this shot. The photograph was taken at f/5, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 60mm. Speaking of backgrounds, those of you who have been following me here of late have learned that I've taken to playing a little more with Photoshop these days. Nothing that wild and out there, but more along the line of playing with colours. With that in mind, I've included a different version of the same photograph here for you to see. I used the Colour Balance tool and just put the Blue, Magenta and Cyan colours each to their maximum. Do I think it's a better photo? No, I still like the original better. I do, however, think that the new version is interesting. I like the blue background and I think the new colour mixture brings out a bit more texture in the petals of the flower. I guess that I'll leave the final decision to you so to which photograph you like more.
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