Somedays, it's just easy...

Day 72 was pretty easy. Why you ask? Because today was the day my daughter picked some new flowers at the grocery store, and she chose some really, really nice ones.

So, a macro flower shot. Pretty simple right? I decided to make it a bit more challenging for myself, and set a rule: Can't be removed from the vase, sunlight only, no tripod. This meant upping the ISO to get a good hand-held shot, and a lot of attention to the location, orientation and DOF of the shot. An easy subject is nice, but if the shot it shoot-and-forget what did I learn?

The final shot was about the twentieth or so, trying a variety of compositions, orientations, and settings. I settled at ISO 400, 1/60th shutter, f/16. The higher ISO was a sacrifice, but I think the subject really was worth the effort:



I call them 'The Flaming (tu)Lips', and I love this shot. There was very limited post processing on this one, just removing a reflection in the top left corner, and cloning out some big pieces of lint and pollen around the stamen. No saturation, colour modification or curves were needed with the fantastic colour of this flower.

I'm proud of this one, and I'm glad I didn't take the easy route.