Flowers from my garden

[Marie Hass]

These images were not macros, so I could not figure out where to put them.

Attached are some pictures from my gardens. I have raised beds, a mixed bed with mostly daylilies and echinaceas, and lots of containers. Please feel free to comment on improvements I might make to the images I have taken. I have been working with live view, as I can get some angles I would not be able to get otherwise.

Thank you.

1. Echinacea "Marmalade"


2. Oriental Lily


3. Echinacea "Hot Papaya"


4. Clematis "Avante Guarde"


5. Echinacea "Irresistable"


Thank you for looking and commenting.

Marie

[terrib]

Hi Marie,
I've been working on flowers lately too. My comments are not from any good level of expertise but just thoughts from what I see.

#1 I find the purple color above/behind the subject to be distracting and I might be tempted to crop just above the leaf at the bottom of the stem. It just seems to be a little out of balance to me but that's just personal taste.

#2 I really love this shot. There's something about the graceful curves and their placement that is pleasing. If I were to do anything, it might be a slight crop at the top to remove just a little of that white on the upper right. Very minor thing but it doesn't take much to make it less distracting. Again, very minor.

#4 The busy background in this does not bother me in the least. It looks very natural with that clematis. I like it.

#5 I really like this shot too. I just really like the simplicity of this composition.

[Panama Hat & Camera]

Marie,
I really like your photos and the suggestions of Terri can help to improve them further. I noticed that photo #4 is not as sharp (when viewed at 100%) as the other.
Antonio.

[Geoff F]

Apart from #2, I would crop tighter, and with a different size ratio, to remove some of the background distraction, but the intended subjects have photographed well.

'Real Life' flower photography is fraught with background problems. I usually go on a 'tidy up' of the background area before shooting; but I still often miss something obvious.

This frequently means shooting with a different size ratio, and with shorter stems than I would have used under ideal and controlled conditions.

[Marie Hass]

Thank you Terri for your helpful commentary. Exactly what I was hoping for. Antonio, thank you for your input. Geoff, I am always honored that you would look and comment on my work.

On #1, I already cloned out a large pink blob at the bottom right. I think much can be resolved if I move a hair to the right so the pink flowers are out of the picture? I will try it this way. And do a bit of preliminary clean-up as Geoff suggests.

On #2, I will try the crop you suggest. Barring that, I can also try to clone a bit or try moving into the bed (to my right) a bit more and see where that gets me.

On #4, Antonio, I can see that the little "tassle" is not in focus. Perhaps a bit more DoF will preserve the lovely crepy texture of the petals and capture the inner most parts as well. I will give it a go.

No one mentioned #3. Gentlemen, is this where I should change angle to get rid of the background, as I have done in #5?

Or at least try the clothespin method of clipping flowers away? I honestly did not think of that till just now.

Marie

[ggt]

Marie,

I like the way you cropped each shot and the background defocus. I really can't see anything I'd change.

Gretchen

[Ken Curtis]

Nice flowers, Marie. Very bright and colorful.

[jamn4ex]

Marie I really like 3, I like the white background to show off all those beautiful reds. It seems like those reds always throw me off and you caught them perfectly.

[Marie Hass]

Gretchen! Thank you for commenting. My flowers provide me with great joy.

Ken, I think I have gardens just so I can take pictures. I do love color.

James, you are right. I usually shoot my reds in diffuse light. The white background you see is actually the old siding of my mobile home.

Marie

[Marie Hass]

After some hard rains, here are the results of this morning's foray.

1. Coreopsis "Route 66"


2. Daylily "Going Bananas"


3. Echinacea "Hot Papaya"


4. Echinacea Big Sky Series "Sundown"


I tried to take into account some of the earlier suggestions of cleaning up the background and being careful of competing colors.

What do you think?

Marie

[Geoff F]

Looking good, Marie, but I would crop #1 tighter and use a different size ratio.

You have tried to include more of the scene than you are able to have in sharp focus; so the rather large out of focus area just becomes a distraction.

If you could have managed a greater focus depth I would have agreed with the composition. Under controlled conditions, such as indoors, you could probably have done a merge with different focus points.

[Marie Hass]

Thank you for commenting, Geoff.

I need to switch lenses - I would probably struggle less by using my 70-200 2.8 with my 550D closeup lens.

Are you also suggesting that I should break down and use my (dusty and cobwebbed) tripod?

Or try a new challenge such as focus stacking? (as she says, tongue in cheek)

On all accounts, you are right.

Marie

[Geoff F]

With a tripod you will be able to shoot at a narrower aperture, like F11 or more, which will give a little more focus depth.

If you have suitable software, focus stacking of just two shots will help. Providing there isn't any wind rock problems with your subjects.

Auto align and use layers/masks to manually merge two shots can work if you don't have any auto blend options. But even this requires software which can handle masking.

Can be good fun though; but can also be somewhat frustrating at times!