[Irma]

Working again with artificial light in my little studio.









Thanks so much for your comments and advice.

[Pat]

Irma, the first one is a cracker, absolutely beautiful - like the second as well but not as much impact as the first.

[craig]

Irma, have very much enjoyed looking at you photographs. As I am newish to Shuttertalk, may I ask what lenses you use. (you may have said in other places on this site, but I have not been able to traverse my way through everything yet). Thanks for sharing your work.

[rdegro]

That Tulip image is a winner Irma, wonderful job!

[Irma]

Thanks so much for your comments

After taking so many pictures of droplets I needed to take pictures of something else, I went to the supermarket and bought some tulips. I was so happy taking pictures to a familiar subject...

Craig, I have a Canon 5D and for these pictures I used: in the flower the EF180mm f/3.5L Macro US Canon Lens, and in the vase the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM Canon Lens.

[NT73]

The tulip! great photo... but it looks lopsided somehow. As though the stem should go straight down. I know they don't always. So just composition for me.

The vase! I would like a darker background, to seperate vase and background.
I think white is very harsh for this style of photo. But what do you think?:/

[Banded Drake]

I really like the tulip , great job on it . thanks for sharring ..


...... Shawn

[ABree]

Irma, the tulip is beautiful, one of my favourite flowers.

[Petographer]

Perfect images Irma. Good work.

[Irma]

Thank you... I am very happy you liked the tulip picture. I really wanted to try something different with flowers this time.

NT I know what you mean about the stem of the flower. They are the first tulips we have around and they don't have a strong stem and leaves so they tend to bend a bit. I had to grap the stem with the leaves and make a knot there with a string to make kind of arrangement. They are not flower shop quality, those are really $$beautiful$$ and they are usually stronger and very straight. At the end I worked my composition giving priority to the curve of the leaf in the foreground.

About the vase... The original idea of the picture was to have the vase half full and ask the viewer how he/she sees the vase half full or half empty. Based on this my priority was to make the half full of the vase contrasting from the rest of the vase, and also to have a brackground that doesn't interfere with the color of the water. Contrast in color in this case was the task to represent my idea.

I chose the white background for this reason. I understand very well when you say that bg looks harsh to me it looks a bit cold. The thing is that at the end of my post processing with this one I worked on the white with selective color. Then surprisingly my picture recover the sharpness and contrast. I was really afraid of a low contrast here. And now that you comment on this one, I will tell you that to make a b&w version to get a good contrast crossed my mind.

[shuttertalk]

Great images Irma. I love the 2nd one - reminds me of a perfume ad one would see in a magazine. Very classy.

Is it hard to get the black background in the first shot?

[NT73]

Just me Irma. I am symetrical
When the vase is in the larger version, the bg doesnt look as white.

[Irma]

Is it hard to get the black background in the first shot?

Not really, I used a black paper and if you have a pale spot in the bg you can always burn it or work with leves.

Thanks a lot for your comments.

[championboxer]

how abt lighting for the shots?

very nice...

[Irma]

In both I worked with a monolight and a external flash. In the first one the monolight with the umbrella was bounced to the ceiling a the flash bounced to the left wall to give the impression of light from the window. The second one the monolight without umbrella bounce to the wall infront of the subject to lighten the background, and I don't remember the position of the flash... sorry.

Thanks for your comment on my pics

[adam]

Beautiful photographs Irma!

[Wedding Shooter]

Already said - but the tulip is superb