After years of shooting plant portraits against black or white I felt like I needed to expand what I am doing. I have been looking at the work of Fleur Olby and her use of coloured backgrounds when making plant portraits. I decided to explore the possibilities of different coloured backgrounds with these narcissus flowers. The walls of my workroom are painted a fresh green and so I put a light on the wall behind the blooms and got this image.
While I always try to get the subject into crisp focus I also like the effects of shallow depth of field and the softness this gives an image. In this case I tried a different approach, the camera was set at f16 so I captured a nice sharp image that I softened in Adobe Lightroom. Using Affinity Photo software I put the sharp original an a layer beneath the softened version. I then selectively erased areas of the soft image to reveal the in focus version.
4 Comments
I’m loving the soft green background Marius, its good to vary white & black w’ other coloured backgrounds depending on the effect you wish to achieve.
Thanks Latifah. I will be exploring different background colours and textures in the future.
Marius, I really love your new approach. The black you’ve used in the past is striking and effective, but can be stark, and I personally love the addition of colour. It feels more friendly! You’ve still achieved the effect of great clarity, which is always present in your work. Have fun experimenting 🙂
Thanks Stefanie will be posting further colourful experiments.