I've been spending all of my creative energy on my Mythical Creature entry, which has probably already eaten up more of my time than any other entry I've done for DPC. But with only 60 entries three hours before rollover, I decided I'd take a break from my Mythicating and shoot something for First Entry.
I'd already done some browsing through first entries thanks to androgeus's HTML lists and found this photo by ankner, the only entry that she (?) ever submitted. Androgeus's list made me notice how many people came to DPC, submitted one (usually dismally scoring) entry, and then took off. I wonder why that's happened so many times.
Anyway, this photo is an artichoke (obviously, I suppose), instead of whatever it was that ankner shot originally, but I don't have a whatever it was, and I like artichokes.
For PP I mostly messed with the tones a lot to try to get a sort of "glow" feel--a gradation from dark to light on each leaf. Also did some softening with gaussian blur and cloned out a bunch of little nicks and dings on the leaves. Coverted to duotone at the end.
I was torn on the border, but felt this image needed the breathing room. Also, having the border allowed me to use the full 800 pixels and get a slightly better compression ratio.
I'm not expecting a brilliant score with this one, but if I beat my average, I'll be happy enough. Even better if I can pull a 6.
Focal length 190mm in macro mode.
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Place: 23 out of 76 Avg (all users): 6.1217 Avg (commenters): 7.6667 Avg (participants): 6.1892 Avg (non-participants): 6.0897 Views since voting: 1125 Views during voting: 221 Votes: 115 Comments: 7 Favorites: 1 (view)
Cannot find Ankner and cannot, therefore, view the original.
I won't vote unless I do somehow.
Revised to say I found Ankner - this is a splendid redo, especially the tones, love the crop.
I would so love to know what your process is on this...I would so hang this on my wall..beautiful (I wonder what it would be like inverted/infrared??? just curious)
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