Bluebells ... and black and white

Image #1:  Bluebells with natural colour.

There was some lovely light on the bluebells under the liquid amber earlier today that I thought I'd try a few shots and see what I could do with a black and white treatment of these pretty blooms.

I thought I'd use a long lens as my original idea was to get foreground blooms in focus with a smooth blur for the background bluebells.  I tried this, but felt there was too little contrast and the delicate foreground blooms, whilst sharply focussed, just got lost in the background blur.

f5.6 seemed to give me the sharpness of the bloom I was looking for and using the long end of the 70-200mm zoom helped reduce the amount of background focus.  The idea was to create a black and white shot, but does it work?

I'll post three versions of the same image each processed slightly differently.  Perhaps let me know which you prefer?

Image #2:  Bluebells with increased light in the midtones and dark areas

Image #3:  Goes without saying really - bluebells in black and white.

Seed pods!

Liquid Amber Seed Heads

I don't know what it is, but there's definitely something about these seed pods that intrigue me.  Perhaps it's their shape or the way they roll down the driveway scattering seeds?

Looking at the seed pods I wanted to make them as sharp as I could and blur the background.  I used a 200mm focal length and an aperture of f4.  I kept using the depth of field preview to make sure I had as much of the seed pods in focus as possible without bringing in too much of the background.

On my computer I used Silver Efex and added a bit of a lighter coloured vignette to guide your eye to the interesting things.  As before there's a bit of interest along a diagonal, and the seed pods are  reasonably sharp.  Perhaps let me know what you think?

Those seed heads again!

In the garden ...

Backlit flax just coming into flower

Well, it wasn't my garden, but a friend's place a little further south from my home.  A stroll around the garden gave me a chance to see some quite lovely blooms.  Perhaps the most significant thing for me was the way in which weeds had been blended and accepted as part of the garden.  Many weeds have pleasing flowers, but, due to their invasive nature, are often avoided and ripped out of the garden.  The second shot in this post shows a blend of chives and daisies.  I really wanted a shallow depth of field to focus your eyes on a specific bloom, but which one?  Do I pick the daisy, to the chives?  Perhaps let me know what you think?  In the third shot I changed focus to concentrate on the chives ... so which do you prefer?

Daisy and chives.  

Chives and daisies

Besides weeds and chives there was a huge range of other blooms including some King Protea.  Quite different to daisies!!  I showed the fourth shot in this post to some friends in the States and was surprised to learn they'd never heard of proteaceae before.  The King Protea has large blooms ... in excess of 8inches or 20cms across ... these really are quite stunning flowers that really make an impression.

King Protea

A rather pleasing doorway

The last shot in this post is a monochrome interpretation of one of the outbuilding's doorways.  As soon as I saw this scene I thought of an "Olde Worlde" scene.  A quick twiddle in Silver Efex for a sepia effect with a light vignette helped produce the scene you see.

I had a great time.  A lovely rambling garden with flowers that will bloom at different times through the year.  I'll take my camera next time I visit along with a tripod.  Shots from this visit were all hand held and I was a little disappointed with the sharpness in some of my images.  I thought I'd take some extra light and diffusers to try and even out the light too.  Quite a few harsh shadows and deep contrasts in many of my shots from this last visit I'll try to rectify next time.  Perhaps I should show a before and after set of shots and get you to let me know which you prefer and why.