Untouched

Mat and I went for a walk this afternoon, as, for the first time in a long while, it was actually sunny! We didn’t have very long so only walked through the local nature reserve. Mat was experimenting with flash, so I abandoned him and set off in seek of my own adventure while he set up his shots. I have missed taking macro photographs, but the bad weather has prevented me from doing so.

I normally end up abandoning the path in favour of fighting my way through trees and bushes to the most untouched areas; for this photo I did just that. I found a small clearing in the trees, which wouldn’t normally be seen unless you were looking for a gap. I stumbled through the gap, into a sort of hollow area between the trees. There were a lot of plants along the ground; this being one of them. I took a few shots at various apertures and decided that this was my favourite, as I liked that the front few leaves, the stem and petals of the flower were all in focus. I used flash in low-key mode, to make the scene look more dramatic.

I sharpened the image in Photoshop, to pick out details in the leaves and the hairs on the plant stem. I increased the contrast, and decreased the brightness, to make the image more dramatic. The increase of contrast made the yellow too bright, so I decreased the saturation. While trying to find the best level for the whole image, I tried under-exposing and really liked the effect.

I’m really pleased with the product of my walk. I usually have on and off days; an “on” day being where I’m pleased with a lot of the photos I’ve taken. Today was definitely a good day!

Bex
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