Firefly Flowers

Well it’s a raw photo which is quite rare for me meaning it was all the camera no image editing programs used which is actually quite relaxing for a change, was cropped though. I guess this entry will have a more educational tone than usual it will be about a technique I used to use years ago but never got it right cuz I stopped to pursue drawing (cuz I wanna improve my drawing skills to a similar or greater calibre compared to my photography and photo manipulating skills). But since now have a better camera and got the opportunity one day I thought why not.

(hum… I think I need those little frames around my pictures to make it look a little better…)

Since I have a normal digital camera often I use photo manipulation to cover up some of the graininess of the photos or some other technique to compensate. This photo was taken at night, soft flash, exposure time of 1/50 of a second, f stop for my camera is set to 2.7-2.8.

The glow effect was caused by me breathing a thin layer of mist over the lens just before the photo was taken. This results in giving a glow to the brightest parts of a photo which is effective for high contrast photos. This technique is unable to be used in windy conditions because the wind evaporates the layer of mist on the lens very quickly. Timing of the mist is manual, hence inaccurate and unpredictable and yet it is crucial to the product, I’m not even completely satisfied with this photo.

Problems I have with it:

- I was too close to the subject, (about 30cm away?) this made the leaves in the background light up too much reducing the contrast.

- There’s no real ‘dark spot’ with most of my photos I have a least one section of complete white and a section of complete darkness. Hence more contrast meaning, a more dramatic effect meaning, more fun for everyone.

- Too many flowers especially in the background reducing the significance of the central flowers.

- Slightly grainy photo but that has to do with the camera so I’m not all that fussed.

(Under photo manipulation tag cuz i have no raw photo tag cuz it's so rare... so lets add randomness in there X3)