What’s Your Preference?

Dazyl · #1 (**permalink**) 06-08-2007, 07:15 PM

This was a different kind of shot for me, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I'm used to shooting flowers at a much closer range, and so I cropped this for a different version here: http://flickr.com/photos/polimom/536203020/

Any thoughts on the crop vs. original, or the composition, generally, would be greatly appreciated.

Murtasma · #2 (**permalink**) 06-08-2007, 07:18 PM

background is a little distracting. What I like to do when shooting flowers like this is to get lower then the flower and shoot up into the sky so you get a solid blue background or go the other direction and come down on the flower so you get more of the grasses behind it and try to keep just one color of grass in the background. Try doing something like that next time and see if you like it more. Over all the colors and exposer bluring are all very good. Background I find is a little distracting. Perhaps cropping some off the right may help but, I don't think it will make a world of diffrence.

xxpinballxx · #3 (**permalink**) 06-08-2007, 08:23 PM

I sort of like the background. If the horizon was just a bit lower maybe under the highest flower. I think its a nice photo and the flower being of center and bowing towards the center keeps your eyes in the photo.

clockdoc · #4 (**permalink**) 06-08-2007, 08:38 PM

Murtasma and pinball make some good points. On shots like this you have to look beyond the subject and see how it plays agains the background. Changing the camera position a little loewr may have made a big impact on the final result. Good sharpness. Compositionally, I would have cropped it some on the right and base as you have a lot of space for the eye to wander around as it is now. Good eye! Keep shooting.

Dazyl · #5 (**permalink**) 06-08-2007, 08:49 PM

Thanks, y'all, for your feedback. I took quite a few shots, but this was the only one I placed against the background in this manner, and in some ways I like it. There's a sense of place and context that one doesn't get from just an ordinary flower against the sky (for instance), or a macro -- both of which I shoot fairly frequently.

@xxpinballxx: I actually did shoot one that has less sky / lower horizon. It's here (click). Better?

@murtasma: I agree -- Against the sky, when it's as blue as this one was, is irresistable and dramatic. I definitely went for that angle, too.

But they don't give as much sense of place. Unfortunately, my "place" is unphotogenic in the extreme. Since landscapes here are unbelievably uninspiring, I was kind of casting about, trying to come up with something a bit less ordinary. Guess I'll keep shooting, as clockdoc suggests, eh?

Thanks again! As always, you've given me great thoughts and advice.

jiminyClickit · #6 (**permalink**) 06-09-2007, 10:43 PM

Dazyl,

This one I like because it shows location, the cropped one on Flickr I like for the more intimate portrait of flower. Time of day these were taken?

xxpinballxx · #7 (**permalink**) 06-09-2007, 10:57 PM

Jiminy, I agree with you totally. I can tell where you are in the first one. Flickr is a nice shot but no since of surroundings.
Now if you had an in between shot we could complete the set....
Great photos and Irally can't say ones better than the other. ilike the first one better overall if i had to pic but the second one is a nice crisp photo of the flower. However on the flickr one i might have cloned out the dead looking one.

Dazyl · #8 (**permalink**) 06-09-2007, 11:28 PM

Hi Jiminy -- thanks for your feedback. Yes, that's what I was trying to project. They were taken between 7:30 - 8:00 am. Sun up, but glare not yet going full-tilt (nor the heat

).

xxpinballxx -- I probably should clone or crop that piece of dead flower out of there. I remember thinking about it when I did the crop and deciding to leave it in, but I can't remember now why I thought it was a good idea. (LOL)

And pinball -- on the subject of in-between shots -- I put a link in the prior response to what I think you mean by that, but you may not have seen it. Does that not fit what you were thinking of? (Click here for link to what I'm thinking of as "in-between".) If it's not, could you elaborate on how it's different from your minds'-eye?

xxpinballxx · #9 (**permalink**) 06-09-2007, 11:53 PM

Okay my mind is seeing it from a lower angle. I like the distance and the background in the original one posted here but I think if the horizon went just under the two full flowers and the one stalk with the buds on it were removed it would bewhat I am seeing in my mind. Might not even be a good shot at the angle and with the flowers shooting up with the sky as a background and the landscape behind the flowers under the two flowers. kind of hard to explain i guess.