One Subject, One Focus
There is a very cool little app I discovered called PAINNT-pro art filters by Moonlighting Apps, LLC. It is available for Android and Apple tablets and phones.
I found this app to be a lot of fun to experiment with different artsy effects. It is easy to use and provides tools to control the effects. Would be awesome if they added brushes!
Thought I would pass it along!
Two yellow flowers, two different backgrounds.
With the summer days quickly flying by, I decided to visit the Chicago Botanic Gardens to photograph flowers. My focus was to isolate a flower and pay attention to background. At the time of capture I honestly had nothing in mind in choosing a background. But, after reviewing, discovered color can really impact the mood of an image especially when photographing flowers…two yellow flowers, two different backgrounds evoke two different moods.
After taking a hiatus from photo shoots to learn and get comfortable with a new camera and lenses, I decided to take a new approach to my flower photography. My process has always been to find an interesting flower against a relatively good background and shoot it with a variety of lenses; wide, telephoto, macro, Lensbaby. My thinking is, a beautiful flower speaks for itself. Not too much thought or creativity goes into this process. Consequently, many of my flower photographs look like many of the photographs taken by everybody else.
For Easter someone brought me a Lily plant. Given spring is still fleeting here in Chicagoland (might snow this weekend), I decided to place the plant on a patio table and see what I could come up with creatively. Not too many ways to shoot a single lily. I kept focusing on what is the most interesting thing about this lily. This is what I came up with.
The photograph taken above was not cropped. The subject was shot as is. So this year, I’ve decided to challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone and photograph only a portion of every flower I shoot. I believe it is going to be “easier said than done”! But if nothing else, I am hoping to learn a lot, and it will definitely be interesting!!
The photo below was taken a few years ago.
f/2.8; 1/100 sec; ISO-1250; 60mm – Sony a6000 and Canon 60mm macro lens.
Recently, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and purchased a Sony mirrorless camera. You could label me as “brand loyal” when it comes to Canon cameras. I know how they work, am very comfortable with settings, menus, etc. My motivation – we do a lot of traveling and am tired of lugging heavy camera equipment.
To my surprise, the Sony menu is not very user friendly, and the learning curve for me was very time consuming. But, I must say it takes an incredibly sharp photograph for the price point.
The one component I didn’t research very well was the expense and availability of Sony lenses. Do your homework on lens availability before you buy! The next best option for me was to find a lens mount adapter to allow me to use some of my Canon lenses with a Sony camera. Although the adapter doesn’t work with all of my Canon lenses, it works with the ones I use most often. It arrived today and given it was 7 degrees outside, I decided to do a quick shoot in my kitchen using the Sony camera with a Canon 60mm macro lens.
Purchased flowers provide a great opportunity to creatively practice your photography skills during the winter months. Anything in your home can be used as background. To my surprise, the insect in the bottom photograph hitched a ride on one of the flowers I purchased!
All of my photo processing is done using a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop Elements. I also use the NIK Collection which is a plugin that can be used in both programs.
f/9; 1/15; ISO-100; 135mm; +0.3 steps
f/8; 1/6; ISO-400; 60mm
f/4.5; 1/80; ISO 400; 60mm
Comments are always welcome.
