I spent last Sunday morning wandering the yard with the camera. I began, as usual, stalking dragonflies and got a couple of nice photos of “Sunday Morning Odes”:
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At some point, I noticed the brightly colored petunias that Joan has growing in some of the planters around the yard. Thus, I took the extension tube off of the odonate rig and allowed myself to be distracted by the petunias.
Then I remembered the bouquet of flowers (cut from their garden) that our neighbors had brought over with an invitation to chat the previous day. I brought those out to the picnic table to photograph using a Strobist approach (i.e. put the camera in manual mode and use the shutter speed to “dial in” the desired ambient exposure (i.e. the background); then use the aperture (and flash power) to get the proper exposure on the subject).
Here are the “Sunday Morning Florals”:
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The first two images are more-or-less straight photos. The remaining images were processed using the Topaz Adjust set of filters and certainly represent an “altered reality”. My intent (other than just having fun) with these images was to emphasize the texture of the flowers rather than their extremely bright colors. Note that the sixth and seventh images are actually the same frame just processed differently.
Comments appreciated!