Subtle Drops

The final composition of my day hunting wildflowers along the ridges of the Great Smokey Mountains. The wind still whipping, the flowers swaying, my urge to get things just right making me slow down, focus on the moment. The moment is what matters with wildflowers I find, they are there and gone just as quick, a moment in time. It necessitates that we take our time to properly capture their moment. At the mercy of the chaotic nature of these miniscule blooms, yet cathartic when you finally return to see what you managed to bring back.

This was easily my favorite composition of the series of Evening Primrose. Growing and blooming alongside a broken sapling, against a black background, leaves wet with the rain that had just passed on by. I shot this particular set of flowers quite a few times, and relied heavily on the inherit dynamic range of my Fujifilm camera. When you arrive on the scene to work on a shot such as this, wander around, back and forth, find your place, find the shot, then set up. Photography is often just as much about the work you do before. as you do during the moment.

As far as the edit, I spent time focusing on the bloom themselves. I masked them out, then masked out the stems and leaves individually, worked my shadows and highlights, pulling my saturation back on the greens. It’s surprising how much you can accomplish by pulling saturation back to accentuate the scene, a useful tip I found for portrait photography as well. Of course you don’t want to overdo it, you don’t want to spoil the magic of the moment when you don’t have to.

Until Next Time!

Aperture: f2.8
ISO: 1000
SS: 1/1000th
Focal: 140mm

Fujinon 50-140mm