“Soft Red Flowers” : Strasbourg, France, 31st August 2011
Flora and fauna are something I rarely delve into as a main subject, as is attested by the rather slim ‘Nature‘ folder in my gallery.
However, always willing to try and learn something new, I tried to see what I could do with these samples I encountered in France.
Get up close, fill the frame, select a wide aperture so as to blur the background and thus make the subject stand out – I did all the textbook things, but still it didn’t look so great since the lens (an optically compromised super zoom) just couldn’t render it sharply enough. Or, since we should never blame our tools, I probably did something wrong to reduce the sharpness of the image.
While processing the photo, I found that the addition of some filters to enhance the tone and mood of the piece worked well, and a deliberate softening (in direct opposition to what I’d originally hoped for) really made it come to life artistically speaking.
So, I learned from this that the much sought-after clarity isn’t always necessary to make an image work.
Check out a larger version of this photo here…
