LukaM
Followclosed purple iris flower blossom on orange background on green stem. Close up.
closed purple iris flower blossom on orange background on green stem. Close up.
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken on our dining table in our home kitchen. I do most of my work on our dining table.Time
I don't know the exact time this was taken, although I think it was taken sometimes before midday. We have a north-west facing window and I was still able to control ambient light.Lighting
It was lit with two speedlights. One for the iris and one for the background - oh, the background is an orange shirt stretched over a white reflector.Equipment
Nikon D90, 70-300 zoom lens on a stand, and two speedlights.Inspiration
It might sound a bit cheesy, but at the time this shot was taken, or the series of shots I call "the typology of spring" I was in quite a bad place. I had just lost my job - a very active and stressful one at that. So I went from loads of work to nothing to do all day in a moment. Except walk my children to school every morning. So my daughter would usually pick these flowers for me en route. And when I returned home I'd photograph them, so it slowly became a series which my wife really liked. I dedicated this one for her. She loves irises you see, so as soon as I got my hands on them, I took a picture.Editing
I shoot raw and ETTR. Nothing was done for this image except a raw conversion: exposure, curves, saturation, sharpening, noise reduction...In my camera bag
I have too much equipment. But I usually travel just with a small mirrorless camera with a kit lens and a 30mm f/2. I have a variable ND filter in the bag as well, that's about it.Feedback
What I usually do is a bit of mental gymnastics: 1.) I check the edges of the frame - don't want anything coming from either side. 2.) Then I check to see if my subject is in a clean enough place so that it isn't touching any elements in the background/foreground. If I'm not satisfied I do two more steps: 3.) move the subject, or remove any distracting elements physically. or 4.) I move the camera - in this case I always repeat steps 1. and 2. About the lighting - I really don't feel confident or competent to explain this so that it would make much sense: 1/200 at f5.6 - so that I could completely kill the ambient. I used one speedlight with a Lumiquest SB-III (or you could use a piece of paper in front of your flash) just outside the frame to the right of the subject. Another speedlight with a grid was used to illuminate the background. And that's it.