Two Weeks To Open…

We enjoy many roses in our gardens and the four bushes of pink by the stairway show their stuff all the Summer season.

I’ve been wanting to set a tripod with camera next to a particular bud and take pictures as it opened, as it developed into full bloom, and finally on October 3rd I got around to doing just that.

Here’s what happened…..  the process took two weeks.

rose bloom opening

The image on the far right happened on Oct 17, two weeks to-the-day later, and even then the bloom was still not fully open (short days of October I guess).  The next day, the 18th, the rains began and stopped my whole bloomin’ (pardon the pun) process.  I had to quit.  Ongoing rain just “kills” these tender blossoms.

Here’s what I did to capture the sequence……   It’s fairly simple:

  • Make sure to use exactly the same perspective (I kept the tripod in place all the time – Carlene and visitors walked around it for the time),
  • focus sharply,
  • use identical aperture settings to keep the backgrounds similar and out of focus.
  • and most important… make sure the light conditions are very similar so the camera will make the color shading and backgrounds appear alike and coordinated.
  • I then combined the five images into one using Photoshop CS5.

Just some side notes concerning the focus…   check the aphids on the #1 shot, the closed bud, (click on the image to fill your page); I sprayed for them immediately after the shot.

And… the first two images were perfectly exposed and focused however the backgrounds were considerably lighter in color than numbers 3, 4, and 5 (I couldn’t re-shoot them) and so my only solution was to isolate the respective flowers and darken the backgrounds in post production.

Hope you enjoy the compilation.  I sure had a fun time doin’ it.

This entry was posted in Camera & Photography Thoughts... and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply