Part two of my tulip fine art flower photography revisit. Photographed with the Fujifilm X-T2 and XF 16-55mm f2.8
Tag: flower photography
Tulip Revisit – Part 1
Sunflower Photography: New Prints!
Today I’ve added two new prints to my Sunflower gallery. These are fine art images, one in color and one in black & white. I was really taken with the shape and form of sunflowers a few months back and it resulted in a rather large body of work on the subject.
There are a few more images to be added to this catalog in the near future, likely just before Christmas 😉
As always, prints of my work can be found at desmondmanny.com.
Tulips, Tulips, Tulips – Flower Photography
Today’s post is an update to my fine art photography catalog. I’ve spoken about the appeal of fine art flower photography before and these recent images reinforce the message. Tulips are pretty common in the genre, but with good reason.
As usual, these images are all available as prints to be found here.
Tulip Gallery at DESMONDMANNY.COM
This is the first to two major updates for this subject. The second will be coming later this year between some other major updates.
As with all my prints, these are printed on archival matte papers so they are meant to last years. My own style of flower photography owes a lot to my love of images with lots of characters and harkens back to the style of late twentieth-century photography in many ways.
Sunflowers – Flower Photography
I have been including fine art flower photography in my photographic oeuvre almost since I first picked up a camera. There’s no real mystery to it. I have mentioned it before but flowers are a fantastic photographic subject because of their availability and infinite form. There are very few flowers that are not a worthy of photographic attention. Of course, like everyone else I have my favorites. I’m very partial to lilies (Peace and Stargazer, thank you), tulips, and now sunflowers.
Yes, consider the humble sunflower. Okay, it’s a pretty popular flower. It’s an evocative flower. The color, the shape of the petals, the variety of different breeds. All of this is in aid of saying that I photographed a ton of sunflowers recently.
As usual, my fine art prints are available at several portals including artspan, pixels.com, and redbubble. Additionally, I’m offering a limited discount on a 20″ by 16″ canvas of Sunflower #6 here (until September 13, 2017).
These images have become some of my recent faves. I find there is something meditative about these particular images. There’s something about the shapes and textures of the sunflower. What do you think?
Tulips – Flower Photography
There are a few flowers I really enjoy photographing. Lilies, tulips, and rhododendrons are counted among that number. As a common photographic subject, flowers are appreciated for their variety of form, intricacy, and emotional connection. Few people don’t have some level of appreciation for flowers. It’s no wonder that flower photography is such a popular genre.
Take these tulips. I went for a classical representation. A simple black background and a single light source positioned to reveal detail. My goal with these images was to give the viewer a chance to appreciate not just the obvious prettiness of the tulips, but also take a moment to consider the amount of detail provided by nature. The lines of the petals, the dusting of pollen that can be seen in some the images, little details that can provoke an inner dialogue.
I especially like the cutaway image that reveals more of the inner flower. It is an uncommon viewpoint, and I think imparts a greater sense of character. The slightly warm tone added to this black and white image was a whim, but one I think works.
Each of the images shown here are important for me to have created. Like with any creative act it was about expressing something for myself and then sharing it with the rest of the world.Each of the images shown here is available for purchase here.
The images shown here are available for purchase here.
Sakura (2017)
The cherry blossom tree that I photograph every year made an early bloom. I was fortunately quick off the mark because it really didn’t last long.
What is it about cherry blossoms? They are not the biggest nor the most robust of blooms. I think it has something to do both with their delicacy and the arrangments of the blossoms that seems almost painterly.
This must be why I always seem to photograph them with a shallow depth-of-field and the sort of subdued color that is well-represented by Fujifilm’s Classic Chrome film emulation.
Shot on the Fujifilm X-Pro2 with XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR (usually a portrait lens, but it close-focuses well enough for this purpose).
Prints available here.
Sakura (2017)
Fading Flowers No. 1
I’m currently splitting my time between the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and X-T2 in the ongoing journey to mastery of each camera. My experience of the X-T2 is most pertinent to this post. Being closer in design to a modern digital SLR, in contrast to the X-Pro2’s rangefinder design, makes it very familiar with my having mostly shot Canon dSLRs the last few years.
There is some muscle memory to overcome as I still find my fingers going to the wrong place for the functions I want. This is something that will become intuitive the more I shoot with the X-T2. As good a reason as any to shoot often.
On many forums and websites there is a lot of talk about Fujifilm’s X-Trans sensor and its support by RAW editors such as Adobe’s Lightroom. Having jumped off the Adobe bandwagon over a decade ago this is far less a concern for me.
As an open-source advocate and user of FOSS software my raw editor of choice for a number of years has been RawTherapee on Linux (available as well for Windows and Mac),and at times Darktable. My experience of the X-Trans sensor with both of these programs has been excellent.
As an example here are a couple of comparisons between SOOC jpgs from the X-T2 and RawTherapee processed counterparts.
Can you tell which is which? Or rather does one seem inferior? To my eye there is a slight difference in contrast and gray tones, but both images are quite nice.
And here, another comparison.
The top image was captured in the X-T2 using the Acros film simulation + red filter and the bottom Acros + Green filter. RawTherapee was able to produce similar images from each neutral RAW file very easily.
So, which is which? Highlight the following text to see: SOOC jpgs on the left, RawTherapee processed files on the right.
I’m very happy to say that there is nothing but positives so far about my change in systems.
DESMOND MANNY PHOTOGRAPHY 