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52 Week Challenge – Week 3: Artistic – Red

This week’s challenge was an artistic challenge that stated the focus of the image should be red.  Therefore, this week I shot a red rose using macro lens, which filled whole frame with red producing a bit of an abstract image.   For this shoot, I used red roses that I misted with water set in a tabletop studio box.  I used a 60mm macro lens on my camera, which was mounted on a tripod.  I also used two external 430EX II speed lights.   I used an aperture of F2.8, with a shutter speed of 1/2 second and an aperture of F4 with a shutter speed of 1/100s both at ISO 400.

After taking the images I imported them into light room and adjusted the them because Cannon occasionally have issues with red. In this case, the red was too bright and was not the actual color of the rose.  Thus, I darkened the image, increased the clarity a bit, and increased contrasted.  I then did a creative edit on the image that faded it to give it a more antique look. 
 
Original Image Straight Out of Camera
First Edit Round
Antique Look
The second image was also a bit washed out so I adjusted it by darkening it a bit. I then cropped the image using the rule of thirds placing the center on a sweet spot.  I then upped the clarity and slightly sharpened the image. I then darkened the edges a bit to draw the eye to the center of the rose. 

Original Image Straight Out of Camera

Edited Image

I ended up taking 95 images and keeping 18 images.  I noticed I was being more selective since the images were very similar, which is normal for a still life.  Overall, I’m happy with the final images. Next week the challenge goes back to portrait, this time of another person. 

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