Morel ( Morchella angusticeps )

All 3 last ones, but this fungus is just amazing. I never saw this kind and it is great to see the creativity of nature, and yours in presenting it.

I like the clarity of  the morel ,and the shallow BG is very good colorwise in enhancing the beautiful texture. Hat off ,Gord!

Hi Pnina,

These fungi are always a harbinger of spring in my part of the world, they appear for a few weeks in May and then are gone until the next spring. Morels are tasty and this one an and several others ended up in an omelet with some wild leeks and Gruyere.  The oof background consists of pine needles on the forest floor.

Mmmmm...must be magical with the wild leeks....they hold each other nicely...

Tatjana,

 

I agree wild leeks and morels make a perfect match!

Hey Gord, Haven't been here in quite awhile, and what a delight to start looking at your recent work. This one caught my eye the strongest so far, given there's so much to see and to come back and study. This shot is just exquisite.

Regards,

David

Hi Dave,

 

Wonderful to hear from you!  I hope you are doing well?

As you've no doubt observed from poking your head through the door, not much changes at PN.  Pnina and Fred continue to fundamentally disagree. Fred continues to behave like a child and I'm still caustic and annoying. I suppose that over time we all do glean some photographic wisdom from the experiences we have on the site, as we do continue to evolve in a forward direction......... at least as regards our photography.

All the best to you, thanks so much for the visit.

 

Gord

"It Came From Beneath the Earth" Yeah, it reminds me of those alien invader movies of the '50's (except it would have been in black and white, of course). I think it's a very strong image even though it kind of gives me the willies; like it might actually develop into Darth Vader or something..

i love it.  it seems to have been processed pretty heavily, but i still love it.  i'm putting it in my "Favorites" folder.  best, j

Jack,

I look forward to your visits and I do miss you when you drop from the site. The surface structure on these morels reminds me of tripe, thankfully they taste far better than they look. Thanks for the visit and the morning smile.

 

Jamie,

This was shot with a Canon 40D with a Canon MR-14EX ring flash and the lens was the Canon EF-S 60mm macro used wide open at 2.8.  The processing was limited to spot healing a few blemishes and dirt specks and trying to bring back some of the contrast and colour which are inevitably lost when shooting through foreground material ( in this case a loose duff of pine needles ) while trying to get that soft blur I was looking for. I will attach the unedited raw file for comparison. Thanks for the visit, always a pleasure to read your impressions.

extraordinary detail and beautiful presentation, Gordon! congrats ;-}

That's really excellent!  Amazing you got that in-camera.  Phenomenal.  Thanks for posting the original.  best, jamie

Hey Gord,

No question about the forward progress of your craft... Pnina's and Fred's, too. I'm hoping to actually come through the door and spend at least some time back here. The time I spent in the past has been terrific learning and I've missed being here. One thing that's diverted my attention that I know you'll appreciate is that I bought an upright bass last summer... played bass guitar for thirty some years but never owned an upright. I'm getting around on it fairly well and trying to learn how to play with the bow which I'd never done. BTW, I still listen to and appreciate the recordings you sent a couple years ago, and have a far greater appreciation than ever for how technically challenging it is to do what those folks do on upright!

A follow-up on your reply to Jamie, I'm curious how you went about the colour and contrast adjustments. Comparing the unadjusted original, the results are really stunning. The original looks just kinda so-so, pretty lackluster, and the finished image really pops. Also, just what is the actual size of that little guy?

All the best to you!

See you soon,

Dave

 

Donna,

Thanks glad you liked this one.

 

Jamie,

While I am not apposed to processing an image to pound it into shape I always try to achieve as much of my vision as possible in-camera. I set such a goal out of stubbornness more than anything else.

 

David,

Congrats on the upright. I can imagine there are equal degrees of fun and challenge involved in mastering the changes in technique. I've just returned from an annual trek to Quebec for the 2012 FIMAV music festival so my ears and my soul are filled with great sounds, many of which were emanating from skillfully played stand up bass. One of the highlights of the festival was hearing bassist Miles Perkin's new quartet play his latest suite,   you can hear excerpts of tracks from this new release featured on his website miles perkin dot com

I looked up the raw conversion settings in ACR and the PS5 tweaks and will list them here. I'm not sure how helpful this info is.  The default settings in in ACR do produce a flat lifeless image which is always in need of adjustments.

In ACR

Exposure + 0.95  fill +14  blacks +18  brightness +25  contrast +50 vibrance +10 saturation + 7  tone curve flat no other adjustments.

In PS5

Curve layer with both ends locked down and middle pulled up from 105 to 125

Levels layer with black point and white point pulled inwards to meet the outer edges of the histogram, gamma unchanged

Levels layer duplicated and set to multiply with 50 opacity and black mask. This layer use to paint in some darkening of a few hot spots in the background.

Flattened cropped re-sized for web and  selectively sharpened.

 

 

 

 

Great photo, but the discussion is fun as well.  Thanks for the tech info.  Better go put together an omelet.  No Morels here though!