High Dynamic Ramblings

Yesterday I had a strange experience that made me smile inside. It was valentines yesterday and so I knew that there would be loads of flowers on sale. In my city (I don’t want to say in Poland because i don’t know) people sell flowers on nearly every street corner. This means that the price of flowers are not so expensive because there are so many places, prices are pushed down to about 3zl a flower.

I was coming back from a flower shopping trip with a bag full of flowers.

Most of the roses I bought have now been freezed as I had a cool idea for an image and i need flowers frozen. I bought loads because i will set up the shot and then place the flower and don’t want the flower to thaw in the time I have set every thing s up so i bought a few so there will be a conveyor belt of flowers being shot and then being but back in the fridge.

I got on my first tram of two coming home and there were no spare seats except the ledge at the front of the car. I sat here in front of everyone with “Take of your Pants and Jacket” blaring into my ear drums and reading my twitter feed. While immersed in my own world I had the feeling that I was under the eye or Saruman  I looked up and saw several people were staring at me. This is something I am used to when I speak English on my phone or with a friend but never when I am on my own. I noticed it was not just me that had attracted their attention but also my bag full of flowers. These strange looks continued for my 20 minute ride via two trams. I smiled inside because i wondered really what was so strange about carrying flowers on valentines day, or maybe they were staring because they wished they could give flowers to someone.

To calm the nerves of one Facebook follower, I did give flowers to my wife as well.

So down to the picture at hand. This is one of my hyacinth shots that i actually processed as a HDR. I used Nik HDR Efex plugin. While processing the image as a HDR I also converted the image to black and white and toned it with the antique brown colour. I had never used this method before and I think it came out quite well. I also added a vignette setting the mid point as the flower in the top right of the image.

I think the image works well and I quite like the effect. It is something different to the other Hyacinth images.

What do you think of the image? also have you had a strange experience of people staring at you when you have been doing something for your photography?
As usual you can let me know using the comments box below.

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