Water Lillies

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I shot this photograph almost 10 years ago in a swampy area just outside of Florence, Italy. It's still one of my favorite images. At the time I was using my first camera, a Pentax ME Super with a Pentax 50mm f2 lens. I have digitally recolored the one yellow pad to make it the same as all the other pads, but I don't like it as much as this unmanipulated image.

Any comments are appreciated.

Joel Collins | jwc3@mindspring.com | http://www.mindspring.com/~jwc3

-- Joel Collins (jwc3@mindspring.com), August 03, 1998

Answers

Extremely nice!!!

-- Lester LaForce (102140.1200@compuserve.com), August 03, 1998.

This image is especially pleasing to me, both in composition as well as exposure and color saturation. Goes to show that you often don't need more than a plain ol 50mm! I very much like your border treatment with copyright; it is the most tasteful I have seen for this type of presentation.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), August 03, 1998.

Well done!

I'd like to point out a similarity/contrast with an earlier image posted - "Snowy Egret" by Adam Harrison. Both images have a primary subject of about the same proportion of the frame, but the "filler" for the egret image is, to me, uninteresting, just some waves. Here the rest of the frame is filled with textured and shapely floating leaves that are far more interesting, again, to me, making the overall images much more satisfying.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), August 03, 1998.


two things: firstly, this is indeed a very effective image, exquisite focus and composition. secondly, it provides an undeniable statement that there are lenses other than leica, zeiss, nikon, or canon, that can provide saturation and clarity of the highest order.

-- wayne harrison (wayno@netmcr.com), August 03, 1998.

The subtle gradation of petal color from white at the center of each flower to pink at the bottom makes this image especially appealing. It also shows that botanical subjects can look great in contrasty light provided the photographer is very careful with composition. Bravo.

-- Richard Shiell (rshiell@lightspeed.net), August 04, 1998.


Looks great! I'm curious as to the type of lighting/time of day. I'd guess that you used a flash since there seems to be a strong directional highlight on the lilies. Can you fill in the details?

-- Steve Leroux (steve@bigadventures.com), August 04, 1998.

Someone above asked about the lighting in this photo. All lighting is natural -- no flash was used. The bright spots that you can see in the water dropletts are reflections of the sun. It was shot in the mid afternoon, about 4pm. Also, I did not use any filters. The photo is shown full-frame; this is exactly how I composed the scene in the viewfinder. Actually, this is the only exposure of the lillies that I took. I relied on the center-weighted meter of my camera, and did not bracket.

This photo was taken toward the end of a month-long photo trip to Europe, so I was "in the zone" for the last week or so and took many great shots with only one exposure.

Joel Collins | jwc3@mindspring.com | http://www.mindspring.com/~jwc3

-- Joel Collins (jwc3@mindspring.com), August 04, 1998.


I find the brown leaf in the upper left hand corner distracting in what is an otherwise beautiful photo. Without the leaf, my eyes go straight to the lilies, then wander around the pads and water droplets, and eventually come back to the lilies. With the brown leaf, my eye is drawn to that corner.

-- Anil Mungal (mungal@ca.ibm.com), August 04, 1998.

I agree with Anil - I would crop it off even if that positions the flowers precariously close to the left edge.

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), August 04, 1998.

Don't crop the brown leaf, but digitally recolor it. Great shot. jj

-- Joe Johnson (joseph.johnson_85@gsbalum.uchicago.edu), August 06, 1998.


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