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A Dream Of Summer
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A Dream Of Summer

by Mark James Ford

Gallery: Macro & Close-upPosted December 18, 2016138 views10 comments
As the days darken further still (in Northern Europe enlightened ...) and the light enters through the window, as if if asking permission itself to escape from wet and dreary weather outside, memories turn to warm mornings in a hazy summer meadow as the world comes to life ...

Here a Chalkhill Blue (Polyommatus coridon) from August ... SIGMA SD1 Merrill, ISO 100, F5,6, 1/50 sec.

 

Comments

10 comments
Comment posted by scott lanz on December 18, 2016 at 11:56 AM
A beauty and work of art, Mark. You have a real talent for taking and processing these type of images. devil
Registered on November 14, 2003, 840 Posts, 12902 Comments
Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on December 18, 2016 at 1:54 PM
Another beauty - sweet colours, "dreamy" quality, and sharp bud and b'fly.
Sandy
Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments
Comment posted by Mark Seaver on December 18, 2016 at 10:35 PM
The warm colors work very well here, Mark, with some fine matching between the bf and it's surroundings.
Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments
Comment posted by Balan Vinod on December 19, 2016 at 12:40 AM
Another fine piece of work from you Mark..

Balan Vinod
Registered on March 20, 2006, 889 Posts, 2312 Comments
Comment posted by Steve Gettle on December 19, 2016 at 11:01 AM
Beautifully done, very artistic with a great dreamy, painterly quality.
Registered on November 29, 2016, 36 Posts, 111 Comments
Comment posted by Kathy Barnhart on December 19, 2016 at 11:43 AM
Another beauty,  in your simple, elegant style that is getting to be so recognizable to me. Lovely, soft colors, and there is enough going on in the background to be interesting. I'd love to see an ebook from you on how you do this! Seems like it should be simple but I've tried and it never looks this good.
Registered on November 11, 2011, 404 Posts, 1639 Comments
Comment posted by Mark James Ford on December 19, 2016 at 4:26 PM
Many thanks for the positive comments 

@Kathy, thanks but I'm afraid there's not much chance of the eBook/iBook - My partner holds macro photography workshops and it would rather take away the potential customer base ... enlightened ... There are two sides to making it happen: On the one hand getting foreground and background the right distance away from the subject which is then separated by the wonderful SIGMA 180mm Macro. The second is the propriety software (SPP from SIGMA) which allows me to convert the RAW data into a TIFF.  Although this software is horrendously slow and the least stable program I have ever used, it allows a very subtle control of highlight and fill-light in combination with micro-contrast from the detail rich Foveon sensor, which simply captures detail (especially fine colour on colour detail) differently than a "Bayer" sensor (See HERE).  It is a combination of the original separation of foreground, subject and background, followed by the ability to recover fine detail in these OOF areas which leads to the effect.  The final piece in the jigsaw is the use of diffusers and reflectors to control the light on the butterfly as compared to the surroundings ... hope this helps
Registered on January 16, 2015, 60 Posts, 430 Comments
Comment posted by David Schoen on December 22, 2016 at 5:41 PM
Very nicely done with beautiful pastels throughout.  Nice composition.
Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments
Comment posted by Dennis Plank on January 1, 2017 at 11:03 PM
Beautiful, Mark.  Your control of dof is awesome.

devil
Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments
Comment posted by Ingrid Vekemans on April 16, 2017 at 7:29 AM
Very very very gorgeous cool

Grt, Ingrid.
Registered on August 2, 2010, 138 Posts, 780 Comments