Fine art lily

Concept

Inspiredby a recent magazine article to reproduce classic B&W fine art photographs, my intent was to create an image which draws its interest from shape and composition using subtle and elegant monotone.

Setup

After experimenting with white backgrounds placed in the garden bed in a) full sunlight and b) a gusty wind, I gave up and cut a young flower head and moved the whole setup under a clear-ish perspex awning at the rear of my house.

The white background (my Lastolight white reflector) was then easily propped up behind the upright flower and caught the diagonal pattern coming from the sunlight diffusing through the overhead perspex. No flash or reflectors. Incidentally, at certain time of the day this same perspex awning produces fantastic diffuse light for portraits as well.

Camera Setup

Canon 5D mark 2 with Canon 24-70 f2.8 L lens at f2.8 in aperture priority mode to blur the background shadow as much as possible. Camera was handheld to allow me to easily move to achieve the framing I was after.

Processing

Lightroom 2.4 rocks, baby. I simply applied the Selenium tone preset which provides the beautiful blue duotone with a small vignette, then played with the highlight sliders to adjust the contrast in the background texture. Moving the noise reduction and sharpness sliders to zero was enough to introduce a small amount of grain to the photo without resorting to photoshop. If I decide to enlarge the photo, I would add more artificial grain using a favourite photoshop plugin but at screen resolutions, adds nothing.

Improving the photo

The stem is quite dark while I was aiming for a more 'ghostly' look.

More disappointing is the framing. My original concept had the flower stem curving elegantly around one side of the frame but the shape of the stem and the natural "face" of the flower head did not look natural in this position so I settled with a "bolder", more geometric framing.

Overall I am happy with the outcome. The shoot took about 1 hour and the result is reasonably close to what I was envisaged. It has a fine art look to it which I would be happy to frame.