The Making of "In Flight"

How the winning photo of the "Flowers Up Close" contest was made

By EricBrown in Photo Contests on Jan 27, 2018
The Making of "In Flight"

First, I would like to take everyone that voted for my photo! I really enjoy seeing all the great photos from other forum members so I am in good company!

A little bit about my background with photography. I learned how to use and develop 35mm black and white film way back in high school in 1983.  So, I always credit my wonderful art teacher for getting me on my path.  Between then 2005 I mostly was just point and shoot person, but I was always interested in photography and had a camera.  In 2005 I picked up a film SLR and took an adult education photography class to get the basics down again and in 2006 I purchased a Pentax K110D and fell in love. I’ve been a Pentax shooter since. I have since started a side business for my photography and enjoy photographing people, sports, landscapes, street photography and I do a lot of urban exploring of abandoned places.  If I had to pick a favorite subject to photograph, abandoned locations would have to be it.

But, I do enjoy taking photos of flowers and there are a lot of places to go in the Washington, DC area.  My photo was taken at a place called Kenilworth Gardens, which is a national park in Washington, DC along the Anacostia River. A beautiful water estuary full of flowers, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, and other wildlife.  You don’t feel like you in a large urban area.  So, if you ever visit Washington, DC and want to photograph something other than the monuments, please visit Kenilworth Gardens.  The lotus flowers and water lilies bloom from July thru August.

More about the photo, As you can tell is was a bright sunny morning. I had my macro lens and my DA* 300mm with me. By the way, I will never part with this lens which works amazingly on the Pentax K-1.  The actual photo was a much wider shot, but I was trying to get a good photo with the bees and the flower. The photo was taken with the DA* 300mm at F6.3, ISO 400 and 1/2500 without a tripod.

Original image

I took several photos since the bees were flying around, but I was very happy with this one. I did all my post in Lightroom.  I needed to heavily crop the photo to isolate the center of the flower and the bee.  I purposely under exposed, but still needed to turn the highlights down and adjust for shadows.

Final, cropped image

I’m never disappointed when I visit Kenilworth Gardens.  If any forum members visits Washington, DC feel free to message me and I can suggest places to photograph!

Thank you again to all who voted! All the selected photos are outstanding and shows the great talent in this forum! Keep taking photos! 

EricBrown

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