September 2022 Challenge: Creative Flower Photography

[Dallas]

@Anthony has chosen our theme for September. 

 

Anthony was inspired by this video for the theme. 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what gets posted.  

[Dallas]

Flowers aren't a subject I have ever pursued with much enthusiasm, but on the days before our 2013 safari to Namibia began we went to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens in Cape Town and I shot a few there. Here are some of them. 

 

 

 

 

[danielm]

Thank you Anthony and Dallas for bringing this beloved but never finished photographic theme!

Good day to all of you.

[Anthony]

Some of my recent efforts.

 

[Fons Baerken]

Sweet William

 

 

[Marco Lanciani]

Hi @Anthony , you are one of the few here I know in person and still remember you with gratitude. Thank you for this challenge ☀️

 

 

 

[Anthony]

17 minutes ago, Marco Lanciani said:

Hi @Anthony , you are one of the few here I know in person and still remember you with gratitude. Thank you for this challenge ☀️

 

Good to hear from you, Marco. Lovely photos and thanks for your kind words.

[Dallas]

Excellent work, Marco. 

[atpaula]

Z6 & 58mm f/0.95 Noct

 

aZ6M_1296 by Aguinaldo  Tinoco de Paula, no Flickr

[Marco Lanciani]

On 08/09/2022 at 06:22, Dallas said:

Excellent work, Marco. 

Dallas, thank you 🙏☀️

[Alan7140]

People will hate this, because.... well, no colour, for one thing, it's not digital, and it's got very few sharp bits. That said, I was trying out my Thornton Pickard ½ plate camera (c.1910) with an early 1960's 360mm f9 Rodenstock Apo-Ronar lens a couple of days ago, using a small stand of feral Blue Plum Hyacinth flowers as a macro-sized target, at near full triple extension on the camera giving something in the order of 1:2 Magnification. Busy bees knocked a couple of the flower heads around during the 4 second exposure to boot. Shot using Ilford multigrade B&W photographic printing paper for the negative, I still liked the result for its zero grain and lovely smooth B&W  tonal rendition.

 

 

The setup involved rolling around on the ground a bit, the lens, and as well the flowers as seen by a phone camera 😊:

[Dallas]

That’s quite a rig, Alan! I like it.  

 

[Markus]

Thanks for that theme, Anthony!

I really like that sort of flower photography and did even more of it during the pandemic when landscape and leaving home was not possible.

We have some nice flowers in our garden and I spend quite a bit of my free time every year with them, using the warm late afternoon light.

Some of my shots are stacked to get a smoother background (then using the GF120), some are not (then using the Contax 120/4).

Btw, the tiny blue on dark green one is in the (shadowy) woods, not in our garden

[blurmagic]

"Wild Dahlias"

 

Created with a custom adapted, reversed, old Zeiss projector lens...

 

 

Edited 15 September, 2022 by blurmagic

[Markus]

Love it! A swirl of colors...

[Dallas]

That is a super creative image, Dave! Excellent vision for this theme and I tell you something, I would happily hang that on a wall in my house. 

[crowecg]

August had been a bit of a quiet month for me photo wise, however, spring has arrived and here are a couple of fresh spring flowers.   Also had an extra long weekend this week due to a dead queen and a game locally known as football that gave me time to get out and get these.

 

Flower113

 

Flower114 

 

Both shot with Fuji 70-300 on X-E3.  I did think that an even lower viewpoint on the snowdrops would be interesting, but the ground was very wet, so I gave that a miss.

[crowecg]

On 12/09/2022 at 18:59, Alan7140 said:

 

The setup involved rolling around on the ground a bit, the lens, and as well the flowers as seen by a phone camera 😊:

 

 

Was the phone shot of the flowers from a position in front of the lens - if so, amazing example of the different perspectives due to focal length and image size!

 

Flower shot looks great even in black and white - your large format images are always so wonderful.

[Alan7140]

15 hours ago, crowecg said:

 

Was the phone shot of the flowers from a position in front of the lens - if so, amazing example of the different perspectives due to focal length and image size!

 

Flower shot looks great even in black and white - your large format images are always so wonderful.

Thanks, Chris.

Similar angle, but a lot closer to the flowers to render them roughly to scale - I don't know what the actual focal length of the phone camera lens is (as opposed to the "equivalent" nonsense), but the lens is only a couple of mm away from where I presume the sensor is; the 360mm camera lens was 560mm away from the film plane, however.

Edited 25 September, 2022 by Alan7140