Bachelor's Buttons

Comments appreciated on colors, composition and the shooting through

technique.

I like the DOF, but most of all the restriction to just the two color tones, and how the DOF choice plays into this. Placement of the bud / petals in the frame's not too shabby either. Best, Jeremy.

Robert, it's that time of year when the blue flowers captivate and entice us to portray them in their true blues. Blue and green always look good together and you've balanced it well here. I like the way you've given equal space for the blurred foreground petals. I initially thought these were in the background but realize they must be infront. The center of focus on the stamens works well; in fact you've managed to get a pretty good depth on the main bloom and yet keep a shallow dof for the rest. I've recently been lying amongst the wild flowers experimenting with this but have come up mostly with blobs of colour. Thanks for the inspiration to persevere.

Hanna, this is called "shooting through," a pretty common technique in flower photography. To make this work, the foreground, OOF petals need to be very close to the lens relative to the in focus petals--foreground petals must be so close as to be completely OOF. If you're interested, both Tony Sweet and Freeman Patterson (Photo Impressionism) have books illustrating this technique. I have several other shooting through photos that are better than this one in my floral folder.

 

Thanks again for commenting--I, too, really love the blues! By the way, this was shot at extreme macro, but the technique will work with any lens. Many people use telephotos for these.

Thanks. I'm a big F.P. fan and have several of his books. I recently did a workshop run by Adele Curtis who worked with and was mentored by him. She has a similar style to his. I understand the technique, just haven't got the results I want yet.