About the Image(s)

This image was taken at a Creative Flower Photography workshop I attended in June. The lighting is natural light, on a covered patio. The flower was in front of a printed backdrop. Camera settings were ISO 250, f2.8, 150mm, 1/1000 sec shutter speed, handheld. We had been shooting wild flowers outdoors and I was using my 40 - 150 zoom and just left it on the camera for this shoot, LOL. Normally, I would have been using a different lens and a tripod, but this worked out fine. I chose to shoot this flower because I loved the slight curve of the stem and the creamy colors of the layered petals. I felt she looked like an elegant lady.

I've included two versions - Original Two was edited as detailed below, but the final version the last thing I did was up the overall contrast and cropped in a little more from the top and right. I felt the final version had a bit of an "old world" feel to it with the increased contrast. Original Two is a "lighter" version.

Edits were done in Lightroom as follows:

- Removed a couple of distracting spots then I cloned in part of a petal to close the gap between some petals at the bottom of the flower.

- Masked the background, reduced the clarity and added some haze with the dehaze slider to make it even softer looking, then darkened it a bit to help the flower pop more.

- Masked the flower and increased exposure to brighten it up a bit. Also sharpened a little. Added another small mask to just the center of the flower to increase exposure a bit more just there.

- Added a slight dark vignette.

I look forward to your feedback.