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Thursday, March 4, 2010

Summer flowers


This is a 10 multiple exposure image. I'm using auto focus on the yellow center and moving the camera minimally between exposures. Rather than hand holding the camera and moving fluidly from exposure to exposure, the camera remained on the tripod. I loosened the tripod collar on the Nikkor 200mm micro lens and twisted the camera/lens in very small increments (as long as the auto focus point remained inside the yellow) to get this image. Of equal importance, actually more important, is the background. Backgrounds can make or break an image. The flowers are in the shade and the background is in bright sun. When out of focus, bright grasses become bright, complimentary backgrounds, as in this case. I also shot at a more open aperture in order to focus attention on the bright yellow center. In post process, Saturation and contrast in the yellow were increased using nik's Viveza.

6 comments:

Karen L Messick said...

Classic Tony Sweet! Just Beautiful...

Tony Sweet said...

Hey Karen: Thanks much!!

Anonymous said...

But you don't need a $200 plugin to selectively saturate, lighten, darken, and whatever. Photoshop has a dandy selection toolset built right in, and a strong supporting cast of related goodies. Spend some quality time with Photoshop and save yourself the purchase of hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of plugins, actions, filters, scripts. I humbly submit that the answer is not always to run out and buy something to solve your problem or get creative.

Tony Sweet said...

ok, this is the second image you've commented on in this fashion, so it seems like you're on some sort of crusade, anonymous. You may want to download some trial versions to see what they can do and how easy it is to achieve an effect with minimal work. There are no medals given for slaving over photoshop maneuvers if it can be done much easier otherwise. FYI, I do know a few genuine Photoshop gurus and they all have and use various plugins, even though the work can be done in PS. And granted, the answer is not to always run out and buy the latest plugin, action, whatever.....but, the answer is also not to avoid the use of such tools, eiher.

Anonymous said...

Whoa, not at all, Tony. I'm no crusader; that's why I said "humbly." Humility is not a common trait of crusaders. I unfortunately did *purchase* Viveza some time ago. I find it cumbersome and unintuitive. In fact, by watching your own video "Visual Literacy" in the section where you discuss preparing files for printing, I picked up a couple valuable tips that, for my use, has Viveza gathering dust in my Filter menu. Ironic, eh? Peace, and thanks for the blogs, the DVDs, the books, and hopefully one day I'll be at one of your personal workshops.

Tony Sweet said...

not a problem at all, Anonymous. I hope that my materials are useful to you and hopefully, our paths will cross in the coming year!