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"We are Lilies fair, The flower of virgin light"
"We are Lilies fair, The flower of virgin light"
obsidian


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Flowers (Advanced Editing IV)
Camera: Panasonic DMC-FZ20
Location: My kitchen at home
Date: Jul 2, 2006
Aperture: f/8
ISO: 100
Shutter: 0.8 s
Galleries: Still Life, Floral
Date Uploaded: Jul 2, 2006

The quote is by James Henry Leigh Hunt (October 19, 1784 - August 28, 1859, an English essayist and writer), although I suspect he was talking about the white arum lily. Lilies found by accident when walking in Henley during after a coffee with a colleague on the opening day of the regatta.

Inspiration here was a kind of art nouveau feel, where the arts and crafts movement had pushed towards the use of natural objects and the art nouveau movement seemed to me to push this into a different place.

Taken in the kitchen with the vase and lilies on a chair, the black background (art mounting board with a mauve pearlised piece of paper blu-tacked to it) lying at an angle below and behind the vase and the camera mounted high above the vase and flowers and accessed by a pair of step ladders.

Post processing:
* noise ninja
* rotated 1 degree counter clockwise
* shadows and highlight pass
* separated flowers, backdrop and background into three separate layers
- curves on background layer
- curves and hue/sat on backdrop layer
- levels, selective colour on flower layer
* cropped
* re-size
* flatten image
* add in frame (4 pixel black, 2 pixel green from picture, 4 pixel black on each edge)
* two passes noise ninja
* usm
* save for web

Statistics
Place: 70 out of 375
Avg (all users): 6.0945
Avg (commenters): 6.9412
Avg (participants): 5.9496
Avg (non-participants): 6.4194
Views since voting: 1425
Views during voting: 302
Votes: 201
Comments: 21
Favorites: 2 (view)


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AuthorThread
07/15/2006 11:40:25 AM
Greetings from the Critique Club

Hello! Congratulations on your nice placement in the Flower challenge. This is, of course, a striking image, and immediately engendered strong emotions from your commentors.

Technically, and compositionally, in my opinion, it's just fine. sure it's bold and the colors almost hurt, but that's what you wanted and that's what you achieved. I very much like the way you made the stems cross on the two lilies. That added an extra thoughtful touch to the image.

I will point out that the lighting on the lavender background is very slightly uneven (but you knew that) and the flowers have a slight indication of oversharpening, at least on my monitor. But those are pickings of nits, and just something to do to keep my fingers occupied while on the keyboard.

In any event, nice image, and I'm very pleased to have the chance to examine it more closely.

Keep up the good work.

Alice
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/10/2006 07:04:51 AM
Carl - great finish in a very tough challenge, and a new pic on your top row, too! Very unique and lovely presentation - and in reading your notes, took a lot of work, too.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
07/09/2006 11:47:34 PM
Gorgeous Shot!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/09/2006 10:25:30 PM
one of my favorites this challenge -- bold still life combines contemporary elements into a crisp composition
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/09/2006 09:14:06 PM
This is very creative, a great effort, I love the colors, one of my favorites in this challenge. Good luck.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/08/2006 11:08:10 PM
Great
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/08/2006 09:54:03 PM
Great shot here. The flowers alone are striking, but with that purple background, they have even more eye appeal. Very artistically done!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/08/2006 08:04:29 PM
no room to judge..however, i LOVE this shot, except for the yellow inner border..just seems to detract for me...but what do i kknow...good luck 9*
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/08/2006 07:22:11 AM
Excellent composition, and also a very good image here as well.....
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/08/2006 12:15:30 AM
A well displayed image
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/07/2006 03:39:58 PM
great composition, just something about the glass, i dont know
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/06/2006 11:58:43 PM
Fantastic, what an engaging and creative composition!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/06/2006 01:04:09 PM
Good color choice.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/05/2006 10:55:36 AM
Nice composition!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/05/2006 12:24:31 AM
Love it. Love the perspective.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/04/2006 04:33:14 PM
3 - The lilies are beautiful, however in my opinion this beauty gets lost in your choice of background(s), framing, lighting and the reflection off the glass/vase. The concept of squeezing them into the neck of the vase/bottle/glass could work, but it looks too harsh and 'stiff' as is. Again, the choice of both colors in the background as well as shapes, coupled with the hard framing, detracts overall from the potential in this shot, in my opinion. A variation in angle/perspective and lighting, would also likely have helped.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/04/2006 02:53:43 PM
Really like the colours and symmetry
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/03/2006 11:24:07 PM
interesting setup. good choice of vase and background.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/03/2006 09:26:15 PM
i think i would have like this better without the purple square backdrop.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/03/2006 06:19:16 PM
The lilies are very pretty but I am not sure about that purple square in the background. I think the image would have been stronger with an all black background.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/03/2006 02:03:27 AM
Good Job!
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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