Death by Roses*

[Colin Southern]

* No children were actually killed during the making of this image!

A little fun in the studio today (another free canvas print for the parents of #2 daughter's friend) (I seem to be very popular with parents recently for some reason!)

C & C welcome, as always.

[carregwen]

Colin

I think it's very good. I like the 90 deg turn composition. It looks as if you used a red filter light. Did you?

[Colin Southern]

Colin

I think it's very good. I like the 90 deg turn composition. It looks as if you used a red filter light. Did you?

Thanks Rob,

No filters, just two heads; Key light at floor level at an 8 o'clock position, and fill light directly overhead. I whitebalanced it correctly, but there's a bit of colour spill creeping in from all the red in the petals and the shirt (shirt / top whatever it's called these days) is actually masked and tone-down quite considerably in PP. Since it's Autumn here I actually printed it quite warm.

I did my usual "print it on canvas and surprise the parents" trick, but had the tables turned on me ... when we drove around to drop it off (girl is staying with us overnight, but we thought we'd drop the canvas off anyway) and the mum said "I've already seen it" (I'd uploaded it to the website less than a couple of hours before). Note to self: "Present product before uploading to website"! Although I had to smile to myself at the thought of parents letting their kids play with mine for the day, and waiting my the PC for the inevitable shot to be uploaded

[Dave Humphries]

I did my usual "print it on canvas and surprise the parents" trick, but had the tables turned on me ... when we drove around to drop it off (girl is staying with us overnight, but we thought we'd drop the canvas off anyway) and the mum said "I've already seen it" (I'd uploaded it to the website less than a couple of hours before). Note to self: "Present product before uploading to website"! Although I had to smile to myself at the thought of parents letting their kids play with mine for the day, and waiting my the PC for the inevitable shot to be uploaded

Perhaps charge for 'bed and breakfast' then?

[Colin Southern]

Perhaps charge for 'bed and breakfast' then?

Or at least breakfast in bed for me!

[Bannacht]

Gorgeous image Colin.

[Colin Southern]

Gorgeous image Colin.

Thanks Carol

[Ashwin]

* No children were actually killed during the making of this image!

A little fun in the studio today (another free canvas print for the parents of #2 daughter's friend) (I seem to be very popular with parents recently for some reason!)

C & C welcome, as always.

One without any comments..

[Colin Southern]

One without any comments..

Hi Ashwin,

Thanks for making the effort - but I prefer the warmth of my original (very much autumn colours in this part of the world at the moment - your version looks more "summery").

[Ashwin]

Hi Ashwin,

Thanks for making the effort - but I prefer the warmth of my original (very much autumn colours in this part of the world at the moment - your version looks more "summery").

Yes, I was also thinking that red cast is to express the mood and warmth and season

Thanks Rob,

No filters, just two heads; Key light at floor level at an 8 o'clock position, and fill light directly overhead. I whitebalanced it correctly, but there's a bit of colour spill creeping in from all the red in the petals and the shirt (shirt / top whatever it's called these days) is actually masked and tone-down quite considerably in PP. Since it's Autumn here I actually printed it quite warm.

After reading your this comments, on second thought, this correction was done.

Anyhow I am also of the opinion that white balancing is not only the criteria to present the IMAGE, there are other factors also, and other factors counts more.

[Wirefox]

Nice work Colin and I love the positioning of the arms diagonal to the frame. Very well thought out. Your borders usually complement you work very well but It just does not work for me on this particular image. I am not sure if it is my monitor but the saturation seems high. Lowering the sats may give more etherial feel. I am just picking nits now so I will shut up

Steve

[Antonio Correia]

Very nice picture Colin...
I like the colors very much and the idea.

[Colin Southern]

Anyhow I am also of the opinion that white balancing is not only the criteria to present the IMAGE, there are other factors also, and other factors counts more.

Hi Ashwin,

What I normally do is start by white balancing the shot correctly, and then tweaking it (usually towards the warm side) on an "as desired" basis. This particular image picked up the red in the flower petels, and I just decided to leave it "as is". Keep in mind too that the image was prepped for printing and display under daylight conditions and an autumn season and in reality at 22" square has a completely different feel to it than the small (and backlit) image people see here on their monitors. Also - because it pushes the limit in terms of warm colour temp it will definately look "too warm" on any monitor that's already set for a warm colour temp.

[Colin Southern]

Nice work Colin and I love the positioning of the arms diagonal to the frame. Very well thought out.

Thanks Steve

Your borders usually complement you work very well but It just does not work for me on this particular image. I am not sure if it is my monitor but the saturation seems high. Lowering the sats may give more etherial feel. I am just picking nits now so I will shut up

That's OK - to be honest, it was shot first and foremost to be a canvas print (that doesn't have any kind of border or writing) - so the border & writing you see here is just a quick "splash of makeup" to make it look presentable. I normally just have an action button that I click to do my traditional black borders with neutral gray writing, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to use red to compliment the red petels and the "blood red" association with death thing - so the actual selection was along the lines of pick something from the palette - up a bit - right a bit - down a bit - that'll do kinda thing

With regards to the sats ... they're pushed a bit to bring out the colours in the petels, but nothing that's looking too over the top at this end. Some of my work does push the boundries for saturation and temperature which means that one needs to have a fairly accurate monitor profile -- any kind of monitor bias can push it "over the top" on that particular screen. Or, it could also just be our different tastes

For what it's worth, the Mum loved it and couldn't stop thanking me for it - which is the main thing

[Colin Southern]

Very nice picture Colin...
I like the colors very much and the idea.

Thanks Antonio - the idea came from an excellent training video by James Schmelzer on the Kelby Training website.

[rick55]

Hi, Colin;

Great concept, great execution. As Rob and Steve said, the rotated composition and diagonals of the arms make great composition. And the challenge of all that color up against the subject makes the execution really impressive. Kudos!

Cheers,
Rick

[Colin Southern]

Hi, Colin;

Great concept, great execution. As Rob and Steve said, the rotated composition and diagonals of the arms make great composition. And the challenge of all that color up against the subject makes the execution really impressive. Kudos!

Cheers,
Rick

Thanks Rick,

The diagonals were very much in my mind when I shot it .. and then of course I cropped to put them where they needed to be. To be honest, the colours were pretty much just the way they were (apart from pushing them in PP), although I did put a blur over them so that there was a tendency to make them a lot softer (the petals were dried flowers and very hard (and hard-edged)).

[Ashwin]

Hi Colin,

Why you choose the caption.. ( DEATH BY ROSES ),
it could have been... BED OF ROSES... anyhow this is what I feel, You may have better Understanding of the situation.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin,

Why you choose the caption.. ( DEATH BY ROSES ),

Because I wanted to

[Ashwin]

Because I wanted to

Yes, you are entitled to