An opening leafbud on a nearby tree, shot in the golden hour before twilight. Title quote from Robert Frost: "Nothing Gold Can Stay"
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Processing is relatively minimal; in ACR, WB shift a little to the warm side, and clarity slider moved way to the left for the misty effect. Since this was shot at f/2.8 on the 100mm macro, there's almost no real sharpness in the image anyway, intentionally; I wanted the misty effect. The image was simplified further in Topaz Detail. Hot spot on leaf muted with selective color.
The framing was actually the hardest part, finding an angle to shoot at that had good foreground bokeh and at the same time natural vignetting at the top.
I think this is very soft and lovely, but realistically I expect a 5.4 or 5.5 score...
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