Blooming Curves
With fall colours vibrantly changing the forests of Ontario, I thought I'd experiment with a little fall colours of my own. This image is a single frame (no focus stacking) of a Gerbera Daisy as seen through a Dandelion seed.
There was plenty of experimentation yesterday to find a composition I was happy with. My first failed attempts were done with Eucalyptus leaves, which allow for water to bead up nicely into spherical droplets. The right combination wasn't happening, so I turned to my backyard.
Since my return from recent travels I haven't been motivated enough to mow the lawn, and my laziness paid off. In the middle of the yard was a Dandelion that had gone to seed, a rare sight this far into the season. Just add water to one of the seeds and you're all set! And I decided to experiment a little with this technique as well.
Normally I use a spray bottle that produces a fine mist, but this seed was subjected to the water vapour being released from a humidifier. It produced an even distribution of droplets over the span of roughly 10 minutes, and I'm happy with the results - I'll be using the humidifier approach more often!
I typically use daisy-like flowers in these images because of the symmetry and flat design. The flower is placed behind the seed and the droplets refract an image of the flower like tiny lenses. The flash used to light this scene is carefully positioned so that it doesn't illuminate the seed too much; only the flower is receiving direct flash.
Blooming Curves
With fall colours vibrantly changing the forests of Ontario, I thought I'd experiment with a little fall colours of my own. This image is a single frame (no focus stacking) of a Gerbera Daisy as seen through a Dandelion seed.
There was plenty of experimentation yesterday to find a composition I was happy with. My first failed attempts were done with Eucalyptus leaves, which allow for water to bead up nicely into spherical droplets. The right combination wasn't happening, so I turned to my backyard.
Since my return from recent travels I haven't been motivated enough to mow the lawn, and my laziness paid off. In the middle of the yard was a Dandelion that had gone to seed, a rare sight this far into the season. Just add water to one of the seeds and you're all set! And I decided to experiment a little with this technique as well.
Normally I use a spray bottle that produces a fine mist, but this seed was subjected to the water vapour being released from a humidifier. It produced an even distribution of droplets over the span of roughly 10 minutes, and I'm happy with the results - I'll be using the humidifier approach more often!
I typically use daisy-like flowers in these images because of the symmetry and flat design. The flower is placed behind the seed and the droplets refract an image of the flower like tiny lenses. The flash used to light this scene is carefully positioned so that it doesn't illuminate the seed too much; only the flower is receiving direct flash.