Carol Watson, PPSA, BPSA
July 2026 - Reaching for the Light
Original
About the Image(s)
This is a simple image of a single sunflower, taken in natural daylight, with an LED light to provide some extra illumination on the left. The image was taken with my Olympus OM-1 and 12-40mm lens on a tripod. Settings were f4, 1/160s, ISO 200, -0.3 stop. I made the following changes in Photoshop after initial processing in Camera Raw.
I blurred the background slightly and added a texture in soft light blend mode. I then added some light rays and darkened the right side and bottom of the image using a gradient fill layer. Finally I converted the image to mono using Nik Silver Efex.
3 comments posted
Lovely image Carol! Wonderful "pose" with the slightly curved stem and the position of the three leaves. Even the little, bent bract sticking out towards the right seems part of the charm, not a distraction.
The conversion to b & W suits this image well and the lighting and post processing elevates this to fine art in my opinion. Well done! Posted: 07/06/2026 23:20:27
The conversion to b & W suits this image well and the lighting and post processing elevates this to fine art in my opinion. Well done! Posted: 07/06/2026 23:20:27
Converting to B/W works well with this image. The overall lighting is gorgeous. The processing brought out nice detail and made the two left leaves look almost translucent. My only suggestion would be to maybe ever so slightly rotate the bottom of the stem to the right to give the whole flower a bit of an angle in the scene. That's just personal preference though. Your version is beautiful. Posted: 07/12/2026 21:41:52
I like your black and white conversion for this image. Although we are used to seeing the vibrant yellow of sunflowers, removing the colour highlights the shapes and textures. The light rays elevate the image. Posted: 07/13/2026 23:04:11