Flower
I usually don't post pictures of flowers in the garden but this flower was lit up nicely out on the back deck this morning so I thought I would snap a few ...
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I usually don't post pictures of flowers in the garden but this flower was lit up nicely out on the back deck this morning so I thought I would snap a few images.
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Oct, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This is a beautiful image of a Cosmos bathed in the early morning sun. This picture was taken on my back deck last fall. I hadn't planned on taking the picture but when I saw how the sun was hitting it just right I knew it would look amazing. I set my morning tea down and quickly grabbed my camera. I knew I only had a few minutes before the sun moved off the pedals. The Cosmos is my wife's favorite flower.Time
I usually sit out on my back deck on cool mornings and drink my morning tea. This image must have been taken around 7:00 in the morning. When the sun rises over the back fence I get really soft rays of light scattered around the deck. This lone Cosmos flower was pointed right at the sun and was soaking in the rays on that cool morning. I knew because of the way the flower was facing that it would make for a great shot of the under side of the pedals.Lighting
Lighting is everything in photography. Without lighting you could not take pictures. I was lucky with the lighting in this image as it was all natural from the early morning sun. I like to look for great lighting first and foremost, then I look for something interesting around that light to make an amazing picture.Equipment
I believe this picture was taken with a Nikon D5200 with a 200mm Nikon lens. I wanted to use a longer lens and wider aperture to get a nice blur on the background and isolate the flower in the beam of sunlight.Inspiration
As I was sitting on my back deck enjoying my morning tea I noticed that the light around the yard was really pretty. While looking around I noticed how this one Cosmos flower was directly in a single beam of sunlight. The way the flower was angled towards the sun I knew it would look amazing to shoot from behind and underneath the pedals of the flower. I hopped up and quickly grabbed my camera because I knew I didn't have much time to take the picture. I got really luck and the flower looks amazing.Editing
I did a little processing in Adobe Lightroom to boost the highlights of the pedals and darken the shadows around and behind the flower. I usually try to reduce any grain and sharpen the image if needed, but that is about it. I am a firm believer that if you take great images in camera then you don't need a lot of post processing unless you are trying for a specific look.In my camera bag
My camera bag usually consists of my Nikon D750 with a 24-120mm kit lens, a 50mm prime lens, and a wide angle lens. I will almost always have my cable release so I can get really sharp pictures, extra batteries for long days, extra memory cards, lens wipes, and a neutral density or polarized filter or two.Feedback
Shoot RAW. The RAW format gives you so much more control of your images. The second best advice I can give is to know your camera. DSLRs have a ton of buttons and features all designed to help you take amazing photos. If you can learn what all those buttons do and how to use them, your images will improve dramatically.
