Another from the archives, from 2010, reworked with better tonal subtlety. It’s a spineless cactus developed by Luther Burbank and this is a huge specimen growing in the Luther Burbank Home and Garden here in Santa Rosa. I didn’t care for the red/green thing and took major liberties to bend the greens to cyan.
Specific Feedback Requested:
All comments welcome!
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Is this a composite? (focus stacks or exposure blends are not considered composites)
NO
Canon 5D2, Canon 70-200 f/2.8 at 85, f/9.5, 1/250 at ISO 200. Linear profile in LR with basic tonal corrections. Into PS for some minor cloning, Nik CEP Photo Stylizer and further color tweaking.
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I passed over the thumbnail image quite quickly while looking for another post. Something said to go back and have a better look. I opened the image and there it was…in true DM style; elegant, (yet strong), and flawless.
Bending the greens has put the image into a whole other category.
Lovely. It’s an image that grows with sustained viewing. I’ll admit that my first impression was less positive, but the statuesque pose is as @glennie said, is elegant.
I like very much the strong and well thought-out composition. At first I had some problems with the color shift, but the more I look the more I like it! An idea would be to also have an image with the cactus in the BG sharp. Here you made the opposite choice.
Since I know by now you are a careful colorist, I can only marvel at the blue-green of this cactus species. Contrasted with the strawberry shades in the flower lobes (at least I think that’s what they are, probably not what they’re called). It’s like something out of a sculpture installation. I like the up from under viewpoint.
This has an extremely strong, well thought out composition. It creates an dynamic image with a lot of depth. I love the repetition of the lobes sitting on top (in 3 places no less). This is an elegant pose…
Hi Diane, I really like the composition of this. The colors are also nice. The light on the cactus is really nice too.
My only nit is that I see a halo around the cactus. It’s most noticeable on the smaller image, not so much on the larger one. In my experience this usually is from too heavy use of shadow/highlight adjustments. I also see this from the Clarity slider as well. It’s most noticeable when the subject background is sky. You might have gotten this from the NIK CEP stylizer too…
I stopped using the shadow and highlight sliders a while and now do local adjustments using various luminosity brushes rather than the global sliders.
Thanks @glennie, @Ed_McGuirk, @David_Bostock, @Ola_Jovall, @paul_g_wiegman and @Kris_Smith! I struggled to find a composition with this specimen – it is HUGE, about 8 ft tall and wide. I always manage to miss it flowering but I love the fruit stage. They are the size of pears and edible, but I doubt they have much taste.
I think the halo is probably from all-the-above. I tried to talk myself into it being an artistic touch but agree that it should be fixed, and I will. I do need to explore a B/W. Stand by…
I’ve never seen a steel blue cactus, but doesn’t matter. It’s working nicely. The contrasting colors make a strong impression. Although I wouldn’t exactly call this spineless. Those glochids are every bit as treacherous as bigger spines.
