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Alien Beauty
Alien Beauty
Sammie


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Flowers (Advanced Editing IV)
Camera: Canon EOS-30D
Lens: Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon
Location: Taos, New Mexico
Date: Jul 1, 2006
Aperture: f/4
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/250
Galleries: Nature, Floral
Date Uploaded: Jul 2, 2006

 Editing: Crop; adjustment layers for levels & curves; exposure tool - increase exposure slightly; very slight amount of filter difuse glow over entire image; noise removal from background only; clone out little stem thing on lower right corner; resize, smart sharpen; sharpen tool on flower center.

This is actually considered a weed rather than a flower - it is a giant thistle bud that hasn't finished blooming into the typical purple thistle flower. This one is growing on a dry, desolate corner in Taos, New Mexico - my husband and I walked past it on the way to photograph some poppies I had noticed from the car. I was struck by it's unusual beauty and spent a lot ot time photographing it. My husband even got a black bit of foam board from the car to put behind it but I liked the ones with the natural bokeh better.

This "flower" reminds me so much of the alien flowers on the episode of the original Star Trek where Mr. Spock finally became almost human when the spores from these alien flowers entered his body. Captain Kirk was the only one not affected and had to pick a fight with Mr. Spock to get rid of the spores (can you tell I'm kind of a Trekkie - of the original Star Trek!). Jill Ireland was the guest star in that episode. This thistle bud reminds me so much of the flowers that shot out the spores. I almost called this picture - Watch Out For The Spores - but thought too many people wouldn't get it.

Statistics
Place: 53 out of 375
Avg (all users): 6.2893
Avg (commenters): 7.1333
Avg (participants): 6.2214
Avg (non-participants): 6.4242
Views since voting: 1060
Views during voting: 275
Votes: 197
Comments: 16
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
 Comments Made During the Challenge
07/09/2006 01:32:49 PM
pretty subject but unnecessary breaking of rule...
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/08/2006 12:42:11 AM
Super crisp, interesting subject and great colors. Nice macro!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/05/2006 06:24:43 PM
Great detail! Great DOF! Love it!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/05/2006 04:51:49 PM
Great photo. Colors are really nice. Great job!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/05/2006 07:33:52 AM
Unusual flower here, and I like what I see,,,,,
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/04/2006 10:26:52 PM
This is my favourite entry - it is beautiful but not the usual cliched flower picture! The shape is interesting, I love the DOF you've used, I like the crop (i.e. slightly off-centre but without too much negative space). Very well done indeed - hope you get the blue ribbon.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/04/2006 08:44:07 PM
Nice DOF and beautiful detail :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/04/2006 08:33:27 PM
8 - Very nice. Nice colors. Looks like it would be difficult to tweak the saturation up a little with resulting contrast issues in the white. Nice as is though. Perhaps just a little more empty space/soft background colors around the alien beauty within the frame 'somewhere' (left likely) may have given this a little extra. Sure it looks very good wall size. Nice 'study'. Perhaps just the sepals(?) at the fore on the right in focus too, but not sure - at any rate any change in the dof would likely diminish the soft and dreamy effect you've achieved, so who knows.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/04/2006 03:44:54 PM
I've never seen this type of flower before and I think unusualness might work in your favour for this challenge. Great DOF and colours.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/04/2006 01:47:30 PM
Love the use of shallow DOF here. The soft, muted colors are really pretty and a nice contrast to the spiky form of the flower.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/04/2006 12:45:02 PM
Earthly thistle I think - subtle (intrepretative) colour is wonderful, beautiful isolated radial view, a great specimen. Superior focus, tonality & dof - good work.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/04/2006 08:16:25 AM
Beautiful DOF and colours, this is lovely.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/04/2006 04:51:49 AM
Almost hurts the eyes with number of patterns in the picture, but it keeps dragging me back into the heart of the picture.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/03/2006 05:14:28 AM
like the impact of this image
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/03/2006 01:44:42 AM
Good Job!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/03/2006 01:24:54 AM
Striking!
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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