Winter Haul

I do not own any plants or flowers; yet, winter for me means haul plants into the greenhouse, haul plants out of the greenhouse, repeat as necessary.   Not sure how I got this gig, but it seems like I do not have to worry about the recession taking my job.

While hauling this plant out, I noticed the bud and thought it would make an interesting photo.  I placed the plant on a table with our waterfall in the background.  I wanted only the bud to be in focus and properly exposed so I underexposed the ambient light by about a f-stop and used a wide aperture to limit the depth of filed.   To light the bud, I used a snooted strobe and feathered the light so that it barely hit the bud.   The photo was about what I wanted, however, I wished that I had given myself more room at the top.  I find myself too often composing my shots very tight--a hangover from my old slide days.  Oh, well, one more thing to work on.

One “around-the-house” photo down, four to go!

Camera settings:   Nikon D3, 105mm  Macro, f/2.8, shot at ISO 200, f/3.5 and 1/125 of a second with snooted flash

Post Processing: 

Lightroom—set white and black point, and added mid-tone contrast, adjusted white balance, increased saturation of magenta and purple.

Photoshop—added a boarder with onOne Frame.