Birthday Posy

[marlunn]

It is my wifes birthday today, a tradition in the family is that there are always flowers on the Birthday table. We did not have the chance to buy any for today so my daughter picked a small posy from the garden, I decided to record it for posterity.

I have not done tabletop of this type before and certainly not with glass involved so a experiment from start to finish.



C&C welcome as always

[Shadowman]

Nice capture.

[Geoff F]

Grape hyacinths in bloom already! Just leaves here at the moment.

Composition and exposure have worked well.

[bnnrcn]

Lovely composition and colors.

[marlunn]

Thanks John,
Geoff, cheers appreciated. Yep in bloom! a nice bit of early colour
Thank you Binnur, my daughters choice and arrangement

[Marie Hass]

Early Spring flowers!!!! Your daughter has made nice choices and arranged them beautifully.

Lovely. Nice job on lighting. A delightful image.

Marie

[marlunn]

Thank you Marie, very much appreciate from you.

[Rebel]

I'm not a flower person Mark, but this is a nice image... surprised they are out though its bloody freezing 20 miles up the road!

[marlunn]

Cheers Matt, they seem to be pretty hardy here and showing up all over - but it is a sheltered area really so we get a slight advantage I guess

[Barbara Ponder]

What a nice way to remember such an occasion!

[Chri5]

excellent exposure and the colours are great.

[marlunn]

Thank you Barbara, my lady was happy with it
Cheers Chris, appreciated.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Mark!

First off, I know I’m late but Happy B-Day to your wife! Flowers on the B-Day table traditions sounds pretty cool!

I’d toss out a couple of thoughts for your consideration if you want to play with stuff like this in the future? Please keep in mind this is just stuff I might look at if it were me shooting this scene.

First thing I noticed right off are the tiny air bubbles in the vase proper on the flower stems. I wouldn’t find that acceptable. I would find that it gives the vase kind of a “dirty” (for immediate lack of another word!) look. I would have most likely wanted it looking clean in that area. Those tiny bubbles are always going to catch your light and show up very noticeably. They would wind up being a pain in post to deal with.

Easy fix though if you wanted! Before you pull the trigger, you could take a small, clean paint brush and gently run it over the stems and/or the side of the glass to dissipate them. I run into this all the time when working with water in a static (not moving) glass vessel. You could always wait and eventually they will go away but who wants to wait and I would think one would need to shoot with the flowers at their freshest.

Also a couple of spots (maybe water?) on the stem of the glass. If these are in the glass itself it would have to be addressed in post. If not, it is crucial to clean the objects thoroughly before the shoot. You probably already know that glass is notorious for showing fingerprints, etc. and these can be nearly impossible to clean after the fact.

I would recommend a couple of black cards (it could be anything really- black paper, foam board, etc.) maybe placed on each side, just out of frame. I would recommend that you have these on hand and play with their placement around the glass anyway. The black will reflect off the glass and could help further define edges or give you some interesting shadow areas to help your glass objects have more depth/interest. Remember: Light illuminates, shadow defines.

With this shot I might look at a subtle vignette in post. This to give the vase a more “targeted” look in the frame. Maybe it would work, maybe not to your liking, but might be worth a shot!

Anyway Mark, I hope your Beautiful Bride had a wonderful B-Day!

[marlunn]

Thanks Terry, very kind of you. She said she had a really nice day, its a foolish man that would question that

I think I may try this again later with different flower arrangements as we go through the year so thank you for the feedback it will prove very useful.

Yep the bubbles on the stems, was wondering how to get rid of them, and have to say in my shame the bottom of the glass (its an old sherry glass) is dirty! - we dont drink sherry, but they were my mums from many years ago, so its been sitting on a shelf for ages but was the right size and shape on the day!

The spots on the glass are really bubbles in the glass (its cheap glass really) so its either accept them as part of the feature or clone them out, not sure, I will have to play with that, mind you I have 3 more glasses like this so will see if one has no bubbles in the glass next time

I have some black card so will try that next time, this was taken sitting on a table on a long piece of white card curving up slightly at the back going to a window with sun coming in from behind, it was out of direct light but still plenty of natural light, a white reflector was placed on the front left to push some light back into the grape hyacinths at the back of the glass as they were very dark otherwise compared to the rest of the flowers and a small led torch on the front right to push a bit of light from that side into the picture to reduce any shadows caused by the backlight.