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Abfc — Hello, World
Published: 2009-11-13 19:55:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 817; Favourites: 20; Downloads: 19
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Description
I'm ready for spring!Gave this photo a "wintery" feel by adjusting the colour curves a bit.
I like the outcome, personally.Photo © Garrett Heil
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Comments: 27
Flowers. So cliché. And yet, with the right set of skills, what was once a pretty subject becomes a dazzling display of mood-manipulating flora!
I'll start with the composition. I love the choice of placement, with the stem sneakily coming out of the bottom corner, and the actual foreground off-center to allow for some negative space over on the left.
I also think you've done a tremendous job with depth of field. There is very clearly a foreground (the bright yellow flowers just right of center), a middleground (the two buds and the other yellow flower group), and a background (the rest of the plant, along with the purple plants beyond). What's better, the middleground is broken up into two parts (buds on one depth layer, flower clump on the other), and the background also has varying levels of depth. This entire breakup allows the viewer to experience the full setup of the photo in steps, rather than all at once.
Secondly, the color choice. The original photo would have been fine for a summer-oriented composition, but this manipulation of colors allows for exactly what you wanted--a wintery feel. The icy blue sheen added to the leaves, the purple hue of the background flowers, and the focused flowers being more yellow than orange all group together to form a very cool and fresh perspective. I can almost feel the breeze on my skin!
What I might suggest is to have a more distinguished subject. Although the focus was evidently meant to be on the entire group of yellow flowers, I do think focusing mostly on one or two might add to the DOF. e.deviantart.net/emoticons/w/w… " width="15" height="15" alt="
Overall, great job on this one. Can't wait to see more! e.deviantart.net/emoticons/e/e… " width="18" height="15" alt="
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Thanks for the critique, it helps more than you know for me to know what I did right and what I could improve on.
As for the depth of field; I took this before I knew how to properly use Aperture to mess with it, so. 
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Not a problem! Glad to practice my knowledge.
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oooh.
I like this.
a shitload.
what i'm trying to say is...
I LOVE YOU, PICTURE OF FLOWERS.
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I love how the colors really stand out and the focus. I'm about to go check out your skateboarding photos they look badass
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Very pretty. I really like how well you captured the flower and it's bright color. It's a very good shot.
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You're trying lots of things I guess as I take a look at your gallery, and you're mastering pretty much all of them, props!
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What @dammitMEL said. o:
Seriously, awesome! =3
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I love how you adjusted the colors to be so bold and vibrant, yet still have a slight blue-green undercast to them. I've always found such a shallow depth-of-field technique on flowers showcased like this to be effective, but I would try experimenting with how much of the front most cluster you could get into focus. The back yellow flower is still as bold in color as the one in front, so it would be nice to bring that one more into focus to match the one in front. You could also experiment with the DOF of the little flower buds and see what placement of focus you like best. I do also like how you incorporated some purple into this color as well to give some contrast in the color of the flowers.
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Thanks for the thoughtful comment Mel.
I'll try tinkering with the aperture in future shots, but for this one I was still trying to focus on how to get everything but the main group of flower blurry, more so than worrying about having the entire main group clear.
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