Paeony.

You'd think I'd know better by now:

'Oh... it's Monday already...That means it's Macro Mondays.
I wonder what the theme is [he looks at his feed with all the titles].
It must be "Fill the Frame"! [be patient - his brain is startlingly slow on a Monday morning, as opposed to being just slow the rest of the time].
Nice easy theme. No time left to actually take anything... but I wonder what I've already taken this week that would fit.
Ah this year's paeonies are out...
I then select and process a likely one [well, let's be honest the only one that could remotely be good enough for the task {sighs}...]
Tags it...
THEN I read the group's theme description.
[You'd think he would be more planned by now and at least know to read the theme first, idiot.
Lucky idiot...
this time...'

So then. A white paeony from my garden.

Yes, they're out again. And with the most enormous blooms I've ever seen on them.

And I'm in love.

Again.

Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image, and the flower. Happy Macro Mondays :)

(Less than three inches wide.)

[Monopod supported in daylight.
Developed in Capture One.
Processed in Affinity with inpainting to get rid of spots and sensor dust. Sharpened with Unsharp Mask; then with High Pass/Linear Blend which brought out the veins on the inner petals nicely.]

Tags:   nikon z 6 Nikon AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED no person nature romance love Appearance elegant flower delicate Summer leaf bright growth pretty perfection outdoors flora purity beautiful Closeup garden Macro Macro Mondays Macro/Close-up paeony petal Fill the Frame

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Old English rose.

A quick set for Sliders Sunday. I’m travelling on a well-trod path taking an image of a petally flower and casting it into the visual playpen.

This flower was taken a couple of months ago on a short walk in the village. It’s a lovely old rose that leans over a wall into the road - I’ve taken it before. I love the dense pale pink petals with the soft yellow centre of the rose.

A set of six today, not really breaking new ground but fun all the same. One plain colour version which is a straight processed affair as I would for a proper image, four variants of this image produced in Topaz Studio, and one black and white version done with Silver Efex and then mangled in Affinity.

Processing notes (this commentary is the same on all the variants):

I - Plain colour version developed in Capture One for colour and form. This is for those who much prefer photorealism.

II - The version really appeals to me because of its subtlety.
When you are starting with a flower you have the beauty ready-made so a subtle enhancement (or a plain rendition) often work best merely to communicate that beauty. Here Topaz was just smoothing the textures and hinting a little more at the petal veins, with a bit of colour emphasis too. It is based on the Bloom preset, with a combination of smudge and glow filters.
I think I prefer it to the plain colour one, though as ever they say different things.

III - This creative version was produced by starting from one of my own presets itself based on the Bliss preset. I like it because it builds on the rose image by enhancing the colour contrast and emphasising and overstating the line structure.

IV - Painterly version based on one of my presets, but originally harking back to an Edward Hopper look using Impression. Edward Hopper is one of my favourite painters, but I have to admit that this hasn’t ended up looking like his work!

I love painterly renderings of images but I always feel conflicted doing them - these days there are so many plugins that produce attractive, almost instant, painting effects it seems too easy. I guess the art remains in finding the right approach to suit the image and then adjusting it creatively. And you always need a good composition to start with.

V - A way-over-the-top abstract version for Sliders Sunday. I guess what I like about this is the sheer abstraction - it’s no longer a rose, but the curves are still there - and the organic feel. I’ve tweaked it quite a bit but I am still not really satisfied with it. It’s interesting but I couldn’t live with it on a wall!

VI - Black and White version. This was first converted in Nik Silver Efex starting from the Fine Art preset, then taken into Affinity where it was partially inverted using just the luminosity channel in LAB mode on a Curves adjustment. The Curves line was hump-shaped which meant that the original mid-tones were rendered lightest with the lighter and darker tones ending up darker. This is for my 100x monochrome project.

As usual, I shall post a link to the in-camera original so that you can see how far we came :)

Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Sliders Sunday and 100x :)

[Handheld in daylight. Develop in Capture One. Mangled as described above.]

Tags:   nikon z 6 Nikon AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED flower nature romance no person petal rose flora love floral blooming garden summer elegant beautiful botanical delicate bright

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A flower. Of some sort.

I'd love to say it was an osteospermum because that has a certain attractive lilt to it but I'm not sure it is.

It was captured while investigating someone else's garden in September. The image was a bit of a challenge to process - pollen everywhere!

For the Friday Flora group.

Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image :)

Tags:   Friday flora flower white yellow macro

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Magnolia Stellata.

This little tree is my favourite magnolia with its profusion of bright white, star-shaped (which is what the stellata bit means) flowers. It’s gorgeous.

There is a pink version of the stellata too, but that is rarer and not as pretty in my view.

As I have discovered they are difficult to photograph creatively. My neighbour has one in his front garden and graciously allows me to try each year! The problem is that as a macro the flowers interfere with each other’s long petals, and if you step back it’s difficult to capture the impression of this attractive plant.

This was taken at the end of March just before a sharp frost annihilated all the magnolia flowers in the village.

Magnolias are an ancient family of plants going back to dinosaur times. Originally, it is thought, they were pollinated by beetles. The flower buds have a thick outer cover to protect them from the beasts before they are ready, quite unlike the sepals of modern flowers. Quite obligingly there was a beetle (or two) on this flower, though I think it’s a more modern one :)

Processed for the Smile on Saturday Natural White theme today. It would also work in B&W I think, but as the theme was on the colour white I did it in colour!

Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Smile on Saturday :)

[Monopod; natural daylight.
Developed in Capture One reducing clarity to add softness and increasing structure.
Inpainted in Affinity to remove damage; rotated and cropped (which was a tricky decision - went for a widescreen crop on the thirds intersection).
In Nik Viveza a bit of selective work to reduce the dominance of the background, and to add structure to the centre bit.
In Nik Color Efex a compendium of filters including Neutralise White (good for this type of pic), Pro Contrast, Glamour Glow, Blur vignette and light vignette both centred on the business bit of the flower.
Back in Affinity sharpened with USM and a bit of Clarity to get the petal textures back a bit; finally some denoising (an afterthought :( ).]

Tags:   no person flower nature delicate purity outdoors one magnolia summer love petal romance leaf flora growth Blur elegant easter stamen water natural white Smile on Saturday HSoS stellata star

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Water lily.

When I heard that this week’s Looking Close on Friday theme was Flores Vista desde Arriba (Top-Down Flower View) how could I possibly resist?

The thing is I have been trying to resist this particular point of view. Flowers are my favourite subject and I usually take the top-down view because of the dopamine rush of the geometry. I have been trying to take other views and wean myself off my addiction. So the theme was like a glass of wine for an alcoholic, and a luscious wine at that.

This was taken earlier this week in the garden at Madingley Hall, part of Cambridge University. The main challenge of taking top-down pictures of water lilies seems to be not letting the piranhas get you...

Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Looking Close on Friday :)

[Handheld in daylight.
Developed and processed in Affinity on the iPad.]

Tags:   Looking close... on Friday! Flowers Top View Flores Vista desde Arriba water lily macro

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