Flower : Peace Reborn

for Easter.

Very beautiful, Walter. I'm a fan of the black background for flowers - makes them very elegant, imo. What great lighting! Can you share a little of what you did here?

Belleza de luz y color, perfecto encuadre y gran calidad tecnica, muy acertada ese encuadre con el fondo negro, un cordial saludo Walter.

Thank you Kim, thank you Julio! I used an umbrella flash above the blooms with a slave trigger and let the on-camera flash trigger it. The dark background fell off naturally but I used some Photoshop to drop the level a bit. Thanks for the visits. Regards.

Excelent light and composition.

Beautiful Lillies, Walter, wonderful lighting and I like the black bg too for flowers.

Many thanks Sondra and Stane! Regards.

Walter, you've really nailed the exposure here--perfect! The texture and delicacy of the flowers is just right. I also think the black background is right. I'd have preferred the flowers up higher in the top left, with just a hint of stem leading into the frame. With this composition, the weighting pulls me out of the frame.

Thanks Bob. I was thinking about positioning them as you suggest but I thought it would have been to centered. Perhaps a little more room all around would be better. Regards.

Thanks for sharing the details, Walter. I like the placement of the flowers as they are. Is that one petal on the top flower folded over? It has a black bit in between it and the other petal.

Yes Kim, that petal is curving back on itself. The separation of it from the other is a bit of a distraction for me as well. Regards.

Ezqusite beauty. Your info on how you do it helps. Thanks for sharing.

Happy Easter to you, too, Walter! This is lovely. I like the crop, and the black background. They're very well lit. Regards! :-)

Wow! Fantastic lighting! Beautiful subjects! Good detail/composition.

I have to say the lighting is wonderfully controlled. I like the backlit flower effect as the light passes throught the petals. Well done Walter.

A Fantastic and impressive flower photo. Excellent work artistically flawless and good control of lighting. Congrats !

Walter, this is a beautiful, sharp photo of my favorite flowers...thanks for sharing!

Excellent! Ivana

Walter, Judged it time to re-browse your portfolio in search of a 'favourite' (tough task since the majority fall into that category) & settled on this one. As already noted I think you've nailed the exposure here with excellent detail throughout & no blown highlights. I have to side with Robert Brown on the composition element; framed a tad too far to the right. The petals are pushed too closely to the right hand of the frame creating, for me, unnecessary tension. This should be a piece of cake to remedy in PS since you have a pure black background. That said, I'd happily accept a result of the quality demonstrated here. Your work, in general, is a joy to browse. Best, LM.

Thanks Len! This is one of my personal favorites in this genre, too. I agree about the crop being too tight; I will tend to that when I print this. Regards.

Great detail and excellent framing. The lighting takes this beyond good to special. Love it!

Beautiful work!

This is a beautiful photo! Great details. Annick

A beautiful still life of lillies. The composition is spot on, as is the use of negative space to the left is perfect. Perhaps a little less at the top would help a bit, though. A couple of the petals are just a little blown out, which is sometimes hard to control with just an umbrella. I burned them in just a tad.

 

Light tents are ideal when photographing subjects like this. Email me off board and I will gladly send you some info on how I built mine. It is 32" cubed and cost me about $20 to make, including the twin bedsheet I folded in half to use as diffusion material.

 

Below is a photo I did of two lillies inside the light tent, using only a single strobe (without umbrella) from directly above. The sides of the tent also reflect light, giving a soft, even light, while still retaining texture.

 

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=9953151