A Magnificent… Um, Uhh… I Suck at Identifying Flowers
I think it's a "false rue anemone", but I could be wrong.
After a long and disappointing series of unsatisfying macros, I think I’ve finally came up with a flower closeup that can top my last one! (See here. Yes, Wikipedia uses it.) This is an older photo, from May 29, 2009. I’ve seen it a hundred times and always just glanced over it without even looking. Something about it caught my eye today though, and I realized that by failing to look for beauty in the seemingly mundane, I’d betrayed my whole passion and motivation for nature photography by ignoring this gem for so long.
I’ll admit, this one involved minor photoshoppery. Nothing was added to the scene, but the lighting has been slightly enhanced for maximum effect. I needed to be sure that it would look as striking to everyone else as it did when I first took a closer look at it. As for composition, I like the way the grass blades in the corner accentuate the graduated colour of the background. I’d also like to point out the focus on the needles at the bottom – just sharp enough to look interesting, but not detracting much attention from the subject. The extremely bold and simple foreground object compelled me to release this with an unconventional 1:1 aspect ratio, which hopefully got your eyes to spiral nicely to the center. Actually I’m kind of weird about aspect ratios, as all of my portrait-oriented landscapes suggest. But if this photo taught me anything, it’s that quick little experiments can potentially turn out much better than you expected.
This image is available at full resolution. Just click the preview.