Lotus Flower:

Mamiya RB67  250mm lens on a tripod  Ilford Delta 100 Pro B&W film rated @ 100  normally developed. Exposure: Single tone spotmetering technique using a Pentax digital spotmeter from the white/yellow petal with N+1 interpretation (i.e., opened-up 1 stop from the "normal" exposure indicated by the spotmeter). The aperture was set to about f-8 to give some DOF but to blur the background's sunlit leaves. Scanned directly from the negative. Toned (+R+Y)and sharpened in PhotoShop

-- Bahman Farzad (exposeit-right@spotmetering.com), September 01, 1999

Answers

Yet ANOTHER fine photograph from Bahman...Love your work Bahman, please keep posting your images here!

If there is anything I'd address in this shot, *personally* I'd like the flower to be slightly higher in the frame...

Remember the rule of 3rds? I think it applies really well here, and would be just a bit better framed being slightly higher, giving a touch more cushion between the lower-most pedal and the bottom of the frame.

That's all if it was me, and it's not, it's your image....But I do like it, another great job!

-- Jason F (jason@fobart.net), September 01, 1999.

Hi, Beautiful, you seem to love photographing water lily and lotus a lot. I remember the "red flare" series. Any particular reason.... Please keep this going, we would love to see more... Count me a fan of yours.

Ranjith

-- Ranjith Wijekoon (kranjith@gisqatar.org.qa), September 01, 1999.

Excellent photo. I understand that this from a neg. If you print this I would like to see the background burned down to black to eliminate the spectral highlights which distract from the main subject, as for rules, there is only one, compose the picture which gives the strongest way of seeing the subject. One thing you might want to try is putting a black mat on the print instead of white, the flower will jump out at you, just try it to see what I mean, mount one in white and one in black, you will see that a white mount suppresses the lighter tonal values of the print, while black allows them to come out. Pat

-- pat j. krentz (krentz@cci-29palms.com), September 01, 1999.

Greetings Bahman,

Ok, you inspired me. I am now carrying a square meter of black cloth around in my bag.....:) I think the top half of the frame is distracting and I like this shot better cropped tight and in square format.

Cheers

-- Bill Wyman (Bill.Wyman@utas.edu.au), September 02, 1999.

As usual I admire your work and your artistic vision. I like the way the flower almost floats in this image, but I too am a bit distracted by the highlights in the background. While I do really enjoy it, it is not my favorite of your lotus series. Thanks much for sharing your images. Donna

-- Donna P. Bollenbach (cassidy@icubed.net), September 02, 1999.

I think the image is a bit too sharp (probably a bit too much unsharp mask in photoshop) but i like the negative space and i like highlights rising out of the flower. As a square it would a bit clinical and boring, I like the configuration chosen.

-- Altaf Shaikh (nissar@idt.net), September 02, 1999.

A lovely image. I agree that a slightly higher framing would have been better, but I like the background highlights.

-- David Bertioli (david@cenargen.embrapa.br), September 04, 1999.