Hydrangea leaves in autumn

[DanK]

I keep trying with dessicated leaves and flowers, which all one finds out in the open here this time of year. This one I am not sure about. C&C welcome, as always.

[FootLoose]

I think that is beautiful, Dan. I love the fluid shapes in the composition and the warm brown tones. I wonder thought if the lower border could be extended to include the rest of the rh leaf?

[pnodrog]

I agree with Greg and it would be interesting and may make it stronger if that stem and rh leaf connection was included. Obviously it will take a long hike back to where you have them but maybe well worth the effort. The only other very minor point is that it may pay to gradually darken the twig from the base of the left hand leaf to where the twig disappears out the left side. The lighting is spot on.

[Karm Redland]

Dan, I also like this image a lot. I agree with the other comments made. The leaf on the right seems to come out of no where.

Karm

[Downrigger]

Good vision to see the possibilities with these in the first place - you have promoted these dried leaves to interesting, graceful subjects.

[Bobobird]

Cool work. The suggestions will make it stronger.

How did you get that black background ?

[DanK]

Thanks, everyone. I like the idea of darkening the twig a bit. I am unsure about the other suggestion. Given the angle, continuing the twig to the bottom would mean a huge amount of blank black space, as well as a line that would pull the eye off to the right. However, it might help to drop the bottom partway. I'll play a bit and see what it looks like.

The background is a black fleece vest. The only difficulty is that the light on the subject often spills enough onto the background that it is not fully black, a problem made worse by the fact that I do this on a fairly short table. Sometimes it is fine as shot. Sometimes I can clean it up just by pushing the black slider in LR down a bit (which is what I did with this one). If the lights are pointed back further, sometimes I have to drop it into photoshop, create a mask based on the black color, and then use a levels adjustment to turn that region to pure black.

[John 2]

I missed this. That is very nice tonally but I agree with the comments about the base. It would definitely be worth another try.