Ok, so before I get too deep into this I want to ask you: what do you think this is? What are you looking at? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see this shot? You don’t have to actually answer (I mean, you’re reading text on a blog. You don’t have to do anything at all.)
If something water-related came to mind, you’re probably not alone. This definitely looks like something you’d see in a lake or at the ocean, or even in a fish tank. But it’s nothing like that at all, and in fact kind of the opposite. It’s a flower (what kind? I have no idea, as per usual.) in a clump of tall grass in the Native Plant Corridor on the Oklahoma State University campus. I shot this about ten minutes after last week’s photo which, you might recall, was taken in the early morning after a rainstorm while on my way to work. Obviously by the time I shot this I was already at work, but otherwise the general conditions were pretty similar: calm, overcast, with a fresh post-rainstorm sheen on everything around me. Those kinds of subdued conditions, with diffused overhead lighting through a layer of clouds, often results in some incredible photography opportunities and this was no exception.
I shot this purple flower with my camera pointed to the east to get a bit of backlighting (not as much as last week’s photo, but the same overall idea) with my Nikon D750 and 105mm f/2.8 macro lens. I used an aperture of f/6.7 for this particular photo, though as per usual I took a variety of shots at different apertures to see how things would look with various depths of field. (Depth of fields?)
Side note: A modern mirrorless camera would negate some of this exposure experimentation, as their electronic viewfinders show an exact representation of what the final shot will look like. No guesswork necessary! But the ol’ D750, even with it’s flippy-flappy mirror and old-school optical design, still produces great images and as long as it works I’ll keep on using it.
I liked this shot because the subject is sharp, the background is blurry but not too blurry, and the sunlight poking through the green grass gives the entire scene a sense of life and vibrance that I really enjoy. It also lends a sense of ambiguity: are these land-based flowers or some kind of underwater plants? Upon close inspection it’s probably pretty obvious, but I like that at first glance one might not be quite so sure. Normally I tend to shy away from that kind of thing in my pictures, but every now and then it can be a fun way to present a scene :)
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