Showy Fleabane

Gallery: FloraPosted July 8, 201368 views7 comments

Erigeron Speciosus. A native daisy on our local prairies. This one is in my garden.

5Diii, 180mm f3.5 macro, tripod. f3.5, 1/800, iso 640, Av mode with -1/3 compensation. Processed in CS6 and cropped to 16.7MP. I deliberately left it a bit dark to capture the foggy early morning feel. The center of the oof foreground daisy in the lower left was a bit distracting, so I painted some of the purple over it to simulate oof foreground petals-not sure it worked. Taken July 6th at 6:07 am on a foggy/overcast morning.

Your comments and criticisms are always most helpful.

Thanks for looking,

Comments

7 comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on July 8, 2013 at 8:10 PM

Dennis, I really like the mood: very tactile and evocative. I really like the POF. The work on the foreground petal would have been better if it took up less room. As is, it kind of swamps the delicate focus behind it. perhaps a crop from below to a pano would give the image better balance.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Ramamohan Pai on July 8, 2013 at 8:15 PM

Dennis - Good attempt with cramming and I like the dew laden petals.

The composition and POV does not work so well for me. I obviously want to see others' comments on this photo. I do not find the stem on the left doing anything much to the composition and the POV chosen provides very minimal area of interest. A slightly higher angle for the bloom may be so that a bit more real estate was seen ?

Sometimes what I do is place a flower at close distance to the front element while shooting so that I get the purple wash without the yellow centers.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 550 Posts, 9037 Comments

Comment posted by scott lanz on July 8, 2013 at 9:27 PM

I think's Ram's assessment is right on the money, Dennis. The almost in focus grass stem on the left detracts from the wash and main point of focus. Your eye goes back and forth. I think the image is much stronger and very appealing without the stem. The yellow center in the foreground bloom also commands a bit too much attention for being just a wash, but it's not bad really. The raised in focus blossom with the dew drops is beautiful.

Registered on November 14, 2003, 840 Posts, 12902 Comments

Comment posted by S Govindarajan on July 9, 2013 at 12:12 AM

Very interesting image, Dennis. Really like the DOF and water droplets on the daisy. I too would prefer a slightly higher angle. As it is now, part of it is obscured by the OOF front flower.

Registered on April 19, 2008, 115 Posts, 1921 Comments

Comment posted by Morris McClung on July 9, 2013 at 8:19 PM

Works well for me, and I like the mood as well. Very nice work.

Registered on May 7, 2007, 670 Posts, 19650 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Yeoh on July 10, 2013 at 8:36 PM

Dennis:

I agree with what Ram has said.

Registered on September 1, 2009, 588 Posts, 8184 Comments

Comment posted by Catherine Reilly on July 16, 2013 at 12:42 AM

Basically agree with the trend of the comments on this one, Dennis. Love the dew-covered flower.

Appreciate Ram's suggestion about technique!

Registered on August 16, 2006, 603 Posts, 9192 Comments