Mann! You must be in-freakin'-sane. ANother flower? Oy!
Answer: Yes....I am.
I chose this because it won more than to date than anything else I shot in September. AND because I finally got a response from the florist when I sent it to him. Others have gone unanswered....very telling.
I was hesistant to go BW on this one because the petals of the flowers were Deep purples and dark blues. But I think it translated very nicely.
Post: Layer adjustments for levels, brightness/contrast and hue/saturation. Clean up with clone or the healing brush of dust spots and specs from the middle being shaken in transport. Sharpen. Convert to greyscale with layers of hue/saturation, levels and brightness contrast. From its first presentations, I cleaned up an area of the petal near the left top corner and cloned a hot spot upper mid right. Resize. USM.
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Yowza! How's that for an initial reaction? And may I add that you're not insane - you're a genius when it comes to flowers.
First thing I did after reading your comments was look for the color original - it is indeed a lovely picture but I very much prefer the black and white presentation. Your conversion is excellent - there's nothing flat about this. It's delightfully rich and the center practically glows. As with most of your work with flowers, your ability to harness light and capture the fine detail throughout the range truly make this outstanding, particularly in the dark petals. In fact, when I look between the two (color, this one) the conversion actually enhances the velvet feel of the petals.
Score and placement are quite good for a flower in a free study, but it's the score from commenters that's most telling - these are the people who really stopped to look and appreciate this photograph.
I'd love to offer some form of constructive advice but really none is needed here. It's been a pleasure to draw this to critique!
Feel free to contact me via PM should you have any questions.
Thanks Jen and Becky! And thank you for all the great comments during the challenge. This was my best free study showing yet. Becky, per your request, here is the color version:
can't explain why..but I think i'd like this with a wider aperature so that entire flower was the same as the center...However, the image does pop somewhat...gl in challenge 8
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