Black Iris 2

'Lovely, Michael. I must have a couple dz shots from attempting the same. Shots of the garden, rather than your lovely black background. 'Getting colors well was not easy. They kept coming out blue. I have a single digital image that gets the colors right. To my eye on the small screen, velvia did very well here. Beautifully done.

The problem with garden shots often is the difficulty of isolating. This flower was brought into the office, cut from a kitchen window plant that morning, to give to another co-worker, so was already isolated. I have taken a more common iris in both color and bw while still in the garden at early morning, and also isolated with a black cloth. Came out swell, plus had a fun little spider web thread on it. My Stella Doro lily, which i did not isolate, came out nice from a naturally darker background of the garden. Someone remarked (Peter, i think) about the repeated shape of the other flowers from that plant in the background helping the composition. I don't see things like when on the spot, but see now how it worked nicely when pointed out. The Stella Doro was better done in situ - not sure it would work as well in isolation.