There are many flowers with interesting and photogenic shapes, but one of my favourites is the humble cyclamen.
Normally I would make an abstract image of this beautifully shaped flower head, using minimal depth of field for an artistic blur effect, but in this case I wanted to show the flower complete in all its shapely detail so a small aperture and very long exposure were the order of the day.
The flower was lit by placing it near to a window with tracing paper taped over the glass to diffuse the light, which otherwise would have been too harsh for the delicate shades of red, especially as I was using Fuji Velvia transparency film - not known for its forgiving nature!
In post processing the scanned trannie I extended the black border around the flower to give a more even framing, as the scanning process had missed some of the background on the right hand side of the image.
Filename - cyclamen-02.jpg
Camera - Canon A1
Lens - 70-210mm zoom
Film - Fuji Velvia ISO50
Exposure - No idea!
Location - My kitchen, North Wales
This image - 547x800px JPEG
Original - 2400dpi scan from 35mm transparency
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Tripod used to prevent camera movement during long exposure
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.