Silk Purse From A Sow's Ear

 Sometimes you know what you want and you just have to keep trying until you get it. I photographed this dwarf dogwood on last month's Alaska trip during a short hike to a lovely pristine lake. The plant was a little past its prime, but the simple shape of the flower and the beautifully veined leaves really appealed to me.

It was along the edge of the trail, with not a great background. These grow very low to the ground so there was no hope of using shallow depth of field to blur the background. Here is the original RAW image.

BEFORE

The first step was to minimize the background by darkening it with the Gradient Filter tool in Lightroom.That helped some, but it was not the look I wanted. After trying a few other approaches that did not work, I decided to try converting it to black-and-white using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. I went through many of the pre-sets, and finally found the one that really made this plant "pop." The super dark leaves and the bright white flower were just what I was hoping for. The entire background disappeared, and the flower took center stage.


Taking an ordinary image and making it into something more artistic is a great creative exercise. It might take some patience and perseverance to find the look that works for you, but it is well worth the time to find the right approach. Unless you want to really go overboard, try to use a light touch with whatever filters or techniques you choose. While this is a very dramatic, not totally realistic rendition of this plant, it still preserves its beauty, the lines, and the shapes that caught my eye in the first place.

TECH SPECS
1/80 sec. at f/9, ISO 800. Panasonic G9 with Leica 12-60mm f/2.8-4 lens set at 60mm. Handheld.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th."  --Julie Andrews