Clematis

Another advancement in your journey with macro and toning. The toning in particular is quite impressive and strikes me as your best to date. Compositionally you have created a terrific sense of depth within the image with your use of limited DoF. The foreground buds OOF and echoing the background bud in focus is a nice touch. The foliage loosing detail and clarity as it recedes into the distance gives rise to many rich and interesting tones and shadows. The placement of the sharp clematis flower is well chosen and I like the stark linear stem jutting inward from beyond the frame. The flower itself has such a great sense of texture and depth. You are obviously studying intently as your skill at conveying these elements is clearly growing. This is a wonderful, well considered and careful PP effort. My only nit would be that I wish that small bright spot just above the top petal of the upper blossom was not quite so bright. I like it being there it just seems a little too pushy.

While I wouldn't presume to comment on your advanced technique, this image is intriguing and mysterious to me. I enjoy looking at it, and it gives my eye so many places to roam. It's also very instructive for me to follow along as Gordon articulates what he sees and helps me understand some of what it takes to produce such an image. I've never tried this kind of treatment of flower pictures, and this one certainly encourages me to explore and experiment in ways I hadn't considered. Thank you for creating this fascinating image and sharing it. Regards, David

Thank you Gordon. I even like your nit-pick since it is so easy solve and I agree with it as well. I'll swap out the files tonight. I had a similar response to BG highlights in the DA roses photo and I have already burned in the BG highlights there (and swapped the files).

 

David, please don't credit me with too much of an advanced technique! Moreover, since I'm still developing it, feel free to comment all you want. I want my technique to be effective for others as well as for myself. I am simply thrilled that you would be inspired by this. Thanks!

 

 

Just wanted to share you my opinion. You have taken the flower shooting in to the next level. With this monotonic treatment you got them look pretty spectacular. Keep evolving if it gives results like this one :)

Best regards Tero.

This new toning style is simply sublime! Keep up the good job!

Thank you Tero and Younes.

 

P.S. Edit to the OOF bud made and file swapped.

This is part of a series of botanicals I have been working on with

carefully controlled DOF and focus fall-off (shot at 300mm) and

natural OOF backgrounds. I have been working these up as B&W images

with quasi-high contrast and then toned strongly. Opinions and ratings

are more than welcome on this or other images of the folder.

This is nicely done, but I'm distracted by the slight blurring of the lower clematis leaf.

Thanks Rachel, that wasn't an opinion I was prepared for or expected. But, it might help explain why this clearly works for some and not for others.

But it IS a lovely photo, Ian.

Thanks for reassuring me of that. But, honestly, your comment is incredibly useful.

 

I am a person who clearly finds OOF or blurred areas in a photo entirely un-distracting and I occasionally need to be reminded that this isn't a universal viewpoint. I had a similar reminder when trying to figure out why my blue lily photo from NYC was so well received and the pink lily photo was so very, very poorly received. I had thought they were about equal in merit yet they rated some 2 full points apart (each with over 12 rates -- so a fairly representative sample) and I was at a loss until someone pointed out that they didn't like the pink one as some of the leaves were OOF.