Sunday, April 4, 2010

April showers...

Today was supposed to be a days of shooting at the Manitoba Museum, and when I arrived I pulled out the camera, snapped on the flash and the Omnibounce, fired it up and proceeded to cuss myself out as the screen displayed 'no card'. AGH!

So, a new plan had to be hatched for day 94. This was not an incredibly welcome development given the standard family activities on Easter Sunday. Fortunately, our potluck dish was already in the slow cooker so I had some time to research ideas, and I had some time after the dinner to devote to actually shooting the thing.

Tonight, the goal was to shoot something that I would normally shoot specifically just for colour, and to make it work in monochrome.

First, here's the shot:

April Showers

My thought was that I needed another point of interest beside simple a strong colour, which I admittedly rely on in a lot of simpler shots. I wanted more contrast, more texture and more detail. Part of this came from the water droplets, and the rest came in bloom selection/composition and post-processing. I wanted to insure that the stripes on the petals were in sharp focus and prominent in the shot, and that the light would be nice and soft, while creating a strong definition between the foreground and background, so this was shot with off-camera flash and an umbrella very close to the flower. Contrast was also cranked up a bit in post to give it a little more pop, and green filter effect was applied to smooth the highlights in the petals.

All in all, I think this translated well to monochrome, and that was the goal. Not too bad for a shot that I never intended to take today!

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