a cold beauty
Oct, 2015Views
1823
Likes
Awards
People's Choice in Black and White Flowers Photo Challenge
Winner in Flowers and Plants Photo Challenge
Peer Award
Top Choice
Superb Composition
Absolute Masterpiece
Outstanding Creativity
Love it
All Star
Magnificent Capture
Superior Skill
Emotions
Impressed
Top Ranks
Top 30 rankTop 10 rank week 2Top 10 rank week 1
Top 30 rankTop 30 rank week 3
Categories
PRO+
Platinum
joycealicesmith
June 09, 2016
Wonderful! Congratulations on the People's Choice award in Black and White Flowers!
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in the garden of a cabin some friends of my family have, here in Norway. It's such a beautiful garden with MANY roses and other types of flowers. Actually most of the flower photographs i have published here are from their garden - "just like a distant star","underneath my layers","dear, i'm on fire.", and "i won't return to the ruins" just to name a few. Most of them are taken within the same time frame too.Time
It was taken the 27th of june 2014 21:38. I believe it was a little before sunset or that it was around twilight.Lighting
This was taken with natural light. It had been a pretty clear blue sky all day with very few clouds here and there, and if i remember correctly it was still pretty clear around the time i took this photo as well.Equipment
I used only my Canon 550D and sigma 105mm f/2.8 to capture this. Settings: Exposure 1/400, f/3.5, ISO 400Inspiration
I guess it catched my eye since it was pretty much separated from the other roses. And the way the patels looked, that the veins was so visible and it looked so broken yet stood up so beautifully. It looked like it didn't want to give up, and had been through a lot. With color, you almost don't notice the brokenness about it. 'cuz it shines so bright of pastel orange/yellow and white against the dark green patels from the rest of the rose bushes, etc. so i really wanted to show the brokenness and that it was still beautiful.Editing
At the time i didn't know how to use raw so i opened the photo in photoshop. Cropped away about 55% of the photo, made 2 curves layers, the first i only edited, RGB, red and blue on everything other than the main part of the rose. the second i only edited RGB on the main part of the rose. Then i made the frame by adding an empty layer and used the rectangular marguee tool and painted it black(tried white first). I failed to make it though, and have been meaning to fix it, but i keep forgetting it. I made a b&w layer, added exposure layer and edited exposure, offset and gamma correction a bit. then i added brightness and contrast layer and only dragged up contrast. Unfortunately after that i don't have the psd version of this image. 'cuz this is an edited version of a saved jpg format of this psd file. and i don't remember what i did to it.In my camera bag
Canon 550D, Canon 750D, Sigma 105mm f/2.8, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3. I have a flash too but have only used it 2 or 3 times, but it's still in the bag. A wireless timer remote, don't remember the name right now. A lens pen from japan photo. extra battery + charger. 3 memory cards + the one i have in the camera. and usually my mac but that depends on where i'm going etc. Think that was about it. I do have other equipment too but they usually don't follow me in the bag unless i know i'm going to use them. Like a stand(90% of the time i don't use this), and the reflector etc.Feedback
If you want to capture something similar: look for flowers that stands out, that have something about them that to you tell a story or an emotion or just a detail that fascinates you. And use post-processing to enhance the reason you took the photo.
