We have a couple of pots of these beautiful little flowers. They are about 2cm across and very delicate. The shot is better viewed large I think.
The colour version is in my second album. I hope that this shot demonstartes that flowers can be beautiful in B+W. I personally prefer the colour version, but still think this one is lovely.
Thanks for putting one of my Another Place shots on the PP. It is always a great place to be! I still have a long way to go in my plan to post 100 pictures of the 100 statues at Another Place, but thought a few days break would be good for all!
I like the dof and lighting here Sean..... I know what you mean about a few days break... I've been going overboard with blossom photos, it's just so pretty at the moment!
That's wonderful. fav! Please tell me how to learn to shoot and process pictures in B&W like that. Any reading you can recommend? What;s the trick? Seeing the lights, the contrasts and textures?
@hjv Hi Hubregt, I hope you get to see my reply. Tricky to know where to start.
1. I guess firstly you have to see the shot. I composed it to deliberately blur the grass background using my macro and reasonably shallow dof.
2. I moved the flowers around so some were blurred and others not. I actually moved some flowers right out of shot. By focussing in the front of one of the flowers, it brought 3 of them into nice focus and threw 2 and all the stalks out.
3. I took it in quite soft morning light, so there were no harsh shadows.
4. I processed by boosting the saturation and then converting to B+W in Silver Efex Pro, adding a grad filter preset to darken the top of the photo above the flower heads.
It seems a lot, bit the lens did most of the work. I hope this helps?
@seanoneill Thanks Sean, that certainly helps. Then it basically comes down to lighting and (unfortunately) getting up early. I'll download a trial version of Silver Efex pro.
Thanks again.
Your b&w pix of the last week are really something. :)
1. I guess firstly you have to see the shot. I composed it to deliberately blur the grass background using my macro and reasonably shallow dof.
2. I moved the flowers around so some were blurred and others not. I actually moved some flowers right out of shot. By focussing in the front of one of the flowers, it brought 3 of them into nice focus and threw 2 and all the stalks out.
3. I took it in quite soft morning light, so there were no harsh shadows.
4. I processed by boosting the saturation and then converting to B+W in Silver Efex Pro, adding a grad filter preset to darken the top of the photo above the flower heads.
It seems a lot, bit the lens did most of the work. I hope this helps?
Thanks again.