Backlit Delphinium

[Round Tuit]

This picture is a stack of 7 shots taken in my garden. It is the first time that I have attempted a stack outside. The slight breeze made it quite a challenge.

[Wavelength]

Lovely; did you use a black backdrop? What is the real size of these flowers?
Why, it looks like sidelit only

[Round Tuit]

Lovely; did you use a black backdrop? What is the real size of these flowers?
Why, it looks like sidelit only

Thank you Nandakumar,
No, I did not use a black backdrop. It was added in post processing. The pictures were taken in my garden with the sun being directly in line and slightly above the flowers. All the light that you see is coming through the petals. Each flower is approximately 4.5 cm wide.
Here is the raw result of the stacking process:

[Wavelength]

OK, Thank you Andre; now i see the backlit effect; after seeing this and going back to the other, i can feel the backlit effect there too

[DanK]

Very nicely done. I know from personal experience how hard it is to do stacks outdoors. I rarely succeed.

I do have one suggestion: to dodge the area around the central white petals a bit. Even though the photo is backlit, this area seems distractingly dark to me.

[Manfred M]

You've done a nice job of stacking here in very challenging conditions.

The one problem I have with your image is the black background. Having seen the original image, I understand that you would want a simpler background that does not distract, but a backlit scene with a black background does not quite work for my simple brain.

[Wavelength]

You've done a nice job of stacking here in very challenging conditions.

.... a backlit scene with a black background .......

That must be the reason i felt it is not backlit....

[Round Tuit]

Very nicely done. I know from personal experience how hard it is to do stacks outdoors. I rarely succeed.

I do have one suggestion: to dodge the area around the central white petals a bit. Even though the photo is backlit, this area seems distractingly dark to me.

Thanks Dan,
I will re-evaluate my dodging and burning and see if I can come up with an improved version.

[Round Tuit]

You've done a nice job of stacking here in very challenging conditions.

The one problem I have with your image is the black background. Having seen the original image, I understand that you would want a simpler background that does not distract, but a backlit scene with a black background does not quite work for my simple brain.

Thanks Manfred,
A light breeze that blew the flowers on their 18 in long stem and a variable sky that kept changing the light were the biggest challenges. Patience was the solution.
As for the black background where the light is coming from, there is no accounting for taste and I generally switch off my engineer's brain and go for what appeals to me. That, of course, does not mean that I don't value divergent opinions.

[Manfred M]

As for the black background where the light is coming from, there is no accounting for taste and I generally switch off my engineer's brain and go for what appeals to me. That, of course, does not mean that I don't value divergent opinions.

In that case you're lucky. My engineer's brain never switches off completely when working images, but I understand where you are coming from.

Part of the reason is that when we "fake" something, it has to look plausible to the viewer. If it is not, then the viewer will usually sense there is something not quite right with the image and that will bother them. Often I find it harder to do something that looks right when doing a major edit than getting the capture in the camera.

[Round Tuit]

...Part of the reason is that when we "fake" something, it has to look plausible to the viewer. If it is not, then the viewer will usually sense there is something not quite right with the image and that will bother them.

I agree with that statement which is the reason that I could not make a realistic composite if my life depended on it. However, I have successfully shot several backlit flowers against an actual dark background in the past. So I must conclude that backlighting and dark background are not incompatible. I suspect that the "not quite right" feeling that I have toward this picture is somehow related to my post processing which mostly involved dodging and contrast adjustments.
As i mentioned to Dan, I will re-evaluate my post processing to see if I can find what went wrong.