Isolated flower

Isolated flower

Originally a snapshot, this flower floats in an absolute nothingness, isolated and cut out, almost as if it had been photoshopped. It is the ultimate isolation of a motif — a flower, depicted for its own beauty, and with nothing unrelated even vaguely visible.

As far as moods or messages goes, the flower brings light into darkness by its composition. It splays out, illuminated where nothing else is, spread out and glowing, in warm and inviting colors.

However, as natural as the photograph was, the sheer isolation achieved makes it look very much — too much — like the product of a stock photo shoot, like something that still hasn't been photoshopped into the right shape. Somehow artificial, a feeling reinforced the more you know of digital era photo editing.

What originally happened, though, was that the flower was hanging down in front of the entrance to a house, illuminated by the bright overhead sun. The house was not very brightly lit, and so the rather many stops of luminance difference between flower and backdrop blocks away the backdrop entirely; the dark counterpoint of lighting a white studio backdrop with flashes to a number of stops over your motif to cut it out for easier post-processing.