Orange Flower

by João
(São Gonçalo, RJ, Brazil)

I was visiting my grandparents in Nova Friburgo (lovely town on the countryside of the Rio de Janeiro State: I recommend a visit!), then I noticed their garden was simply beautiful.

I took many pictures, but this flower was the best of them. It was with a point-and-shoot compact, but the super-macro mode worked really fine!


Thanks for the submission João.

Taking photos of flowers can be a tricky endeavour. It's another of those subjects that looks so good in real life, but can be difficult to capture in a photograph.

Things that are good about this shot are the good clear focus, and the nicely blurred background. Taken with a compact (in macro mode) has given this shallow depth of field.

Now, if a digital SLR had taken the same photo, we would have had an even shallower focus. In the absence of a digital SLR though, I think you have done well.

There are a couple of areas that could improve this shot further though.

First, the position of the flower in the frame. The bottom edge of the flower is cut off, but there is a lot of space above the flower.

Now, I wouldn't recommend zooming out (in order to get all the petals in), I would actually recommend zooming in a little more, so that we get an equal "cut-off" at the top too. This would give us a really tight crop on the flower, and I think the photograph would benefit from it.

The second recommendation I have is in regard to post-processing. Flower shots need colour, and I would suggest upping the saturation using software (all image editing software can do this).

Once saturated a little, I would finish the post-processing by sharpening the photograph just a touch. This would really make the flower stand out in the photo.

Overall though, nice shot (especially from a compact!), and thanks for the recommendation to visit Nova Friburgo!

Ed.

• Understanding depth of field