DSLR Photography Forum

I worked this picture with this treatment because the color version was ugly. Cut out is not a regular treatment in my post processing but I think in this improved my picture a lot. I was tempt to use a soft foccus treatment here, but I thought it might be best to leave it alone as I have mix of colors.

Taken with one studio flash with umbrella, as background a blue cardboard with some chacoal strokes diffused with kitchen paper. White cardboard in the surface.



Thanks so much for any critique or advice ...

Ah yes - lovely. This is probably one of the best uses of this technique that I have seen. The freshness of the apple is accentuated by the B&W of the flowers. Usually I find this a bit of a gimic - but in this case, the treatment adds meaning to the photo. Beautiful.

Perfect choice Irma and well executed!

Thanks so much Toad, Chris...

I think the picture was worth the try with this treatment. Next time I will work with a more neutral background, because that was the thing that didn't work in my color version, and maybe instead of chacoal pastel colors.

I like the colors and the treatment of the picture, you methodology is amazing to me!

As for the content however, I am thinking maybe larger flowers would make for a better picture?
and there are also so many of the flower heads in your picture facing away from the lense,
making me as a viewer wonder what is to see back there.

if you look at Van Gogh's sun flowers for example, most of them are facing the viewer.



but that's just my 2c of course, I really like your picture already the way it is.

Uli

I love this Irma. Very good choice for this technique and well done.

Uli...
I waited days to buy sunflowers, but they never arrived. I wanted to work my picture as Matt did in the flash assignment, and I thought these might work.

As I saw in the picture that I was losing deffinition in the flowers because of the size, I isolated two of them near the apple, so they could be seen in detail...

Amazing that you can buy a kilo of apples for less than one euro and a few flowers for more than two euro!!

Thanks for your example with Van Gogh's painting, I didn't take into account in my pictures where the flowers were tooking at... :/


Thanks Aine for your comment. I am happy you liked the technique I used here....

I know, flowers are soooo expensive!!! It's mad.

go and steal some from a field

I forgot to say I like the idea of your background, it looks so professional, also seems easy enough to make.

Uli

Very nice Irma.

Lighting is great, and the composition works great aswell.

The hard edge in the background grabs to much attention for me though. Either move out the subject so the table edge isnt in focus, or changing the angle would do it aswell (eventhough im not sure it improve the image by changing the perspective). Or if one wants to do the tiresome job of blurring the edge in ps.

/Paul L.

Very subtle and tasteful. The unsaturated colors give the photo a sophistication and gloss and take it out of the ordinary.

Thanks so much Paul, Don for your comments and advice...

Paul, you are right about the horizon in the picture it is a bit too hard and placing the subject a bit far from the edge is a good idea. I have been working with this kind of setup with my backdrops as to give a bit of depth to the picture and also because it is easier to work like this in a small room.

Don, I am very happy you liked this picture. I like a lot the treatment too.