Jill, I really enjoyed looking at your web site, I will have to return, as it has a lot of interesting content, too much for one visit. You have initiated a wonderful webpage which shows the directions you are taking an it looks awesome. Thank you for mentioning the
::: F L O R A N O V A :::: page. The images there are soft focus, yet focused, dramatic, romantic and dreamy and really capture the delicate essence of the flower, the petals. Even the thicker plants, which one would not usually think of as semi transparent, they still have a translucent quality about them as well. Looking at the photos there does not look to be any soft focus lens, diffusion material, the DIY vaseline smeared on any filters, nylon, cellophane or cling wrap punctured with holes, flash gel covers, adding extension tubes to lens and shooting with shallow depth of field, PP by using an inverted High Pass filter on a duplicate layer and then blending or any Orton effects being done. Warwick Orme just appears to be lighting and camera positioning to capture the most often subtle lighting through the petals of the flowers. It is almost like the portraits I have seen done by others using "high-key soft focus portrait photography" where there is an image under lots and lots of light, however the image is not underexposed too dark with backlighting or overexposed with front lighting but rather the subject is bathed in light which eliminates shadows. It was also interesting that Orme used the same white (light) backgrounds also preferred by High key portraiture. I do see a lot of these qualities coming out in your work at
Life Images By Jill. It is such a unique or refreshing look at flowers, when a lot of flower photography places a richly coloured flower on a black background to make it pop, this technique enhances the dramatic light of whites and light coloured flowers and their essence and their delicateness. Now I am rambling again. Best wishes again, and thank you for mentioning the ::: F L O R A N O V A :::: web site.