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Dec, 2015Views
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kathleenparry
March 10, 2016
Samuel, beautiful body of work. I mean I really like them all very much...this one spoke to me. Thank you for Following. :)
kathleenparry
March 10, 2016
Samuel, beautiful body of work. I mean I really like them all very much...this one spoke to me. Thank you for Following. :)
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This wonderful Water Liilly was blooming on the beautiful Island of Kaua'i on the Hawaiian Islands. I was out on an adventure shooting day and happened across this beautiful white flower creature.Time
This was one of those days where anything can happen. Going out with a trusty camera with no expectations often times can lead one to the right places at exactly the right moments. This was taken mid-day walking around my beloved island home. I was very grateful to catch this at just the right conditions to bring out the beautiful reflections upon the water.Lighting
The lighting situation was very surprising and beautiful, mid-day we often deal with such harsh light at times it is barely worth shooting to get a full range of lighting emotion. A perfect little beam of sunlight hit this Egyptian Lotus making it stand out above anything else in it's environment. The highlights to the lows ratio is very pleasing and seems to create a soothing effect on the heart and mind when seeing the soft white against the reflections.Equipment
This was shot on a Sony a6000 with a 18-200mm lens (SEL18200 LE), all natural light, no tripod.Inspiration
An intimate relationship with this type of water lilly, when they grow, they form beautiful mandalas which change daily. At night they close letting only their pads see the stars, and in the morning after an hour to three after the sun rises they begin to open reveling many geometries within minutes. My relationship with them have primarily been of the Blue-Purple species, this white variety stood out wonderfully against the water.Editing
This was actually testing using Affinity Photo as a raw processor, this was a 3 frame exposure so I followed it up with Aurora HDR Pro. I personally am a fan of subtler HDR edits, often times I find auto settings on HDR programs blow out colors instead of giving more dynamic range to the light. Let's work on that, autonomy is great in work flow if it really does the thing. I primarily use Capture One 9 for my raw processing, and photoshop and helicon focus for most everything now-a-days.In my camera bag
One of my favorites that come in and out of my world is the Pentax 645z, I love digital medium format. Would love to let Hasselblad's new X1D float into my world. But on the here and now (mind you that only applies to 9/1/16) I generally roll with the a6000 this lotus was captured with, the 18-200mm ƒ3.5 however, decided to retire. Good news, a new and favored contender the 70-300mm G ƒ2.8 have gleefully taken the telephotos place, while a Zeiss Touit 12mm ƒ2.8 takes to the wideside. Also one might find a GoPro Session or two, a few fun filters, I love super light tripods (would love to test yours), OP/TECH Rain sleeve since it rains a lot around Hawaii.Feedback
Even in harsh light of mid-day, look for little pockets where light can filter, they are all around when you are wanting natural lighting. This can work beautifully for small objects or animals, light through a tree for example can create the perfect light for a flower when everything else is blown out. Look around, golden hour is a gorgeous time for a shoot but going out and becoming more skillful just but seeing more of life in new ways is a blessing.
