I bought some roses for Valentine’s Day and since they were here I decided to use them for photos. I did a number of shots, from under to overexposed, using one or two roses in each shot. The primary reason for the pics was to make a card for my wife. I also wanted a shot to put on instagram and I saw it as an opportunity to experiment. 

 The first one I worked on was the card. This was shot with a Canon EOS 6D Mark II. The lens was a EF100mm f/2.8 macro. The setting were, exposure: 1/6 sec; f/28; ISO 100; manual. There were some minor tweaks to slightly lighten and sharpen the shot. The results were pretty good. Oh, the inscription is from a song by Chris Stapleton, “More of you.”

The second shot was to post. Using the same camera and lens, I had the settings at, exposure: 1/8 sec; f/5.6; ISO 100; manual. This one was a little darker but not real underexposed. In Photoshop I tweaked it a bit to give it some pop and sharpness. The results were good. This type of dark shot is what I tend to gravitate to.

Next I decided to see what I liked from the overexposed shots. I decided to use a shot of a single rose. The camera and lens remained the same.  The only thing changed in the exposure was the shutter speed which was set to 3.2 sec. Again in Photoshop there were a couple of tweaks. The first was to remove a slight light green, a piece of a leaf, from the right of the pic. The second was a slight adjustment to the contrast.

I really like the way this shot came out. With the slight pink color providing contrast, the shot brings a feeling of lightness and emerging life.