After photographing the rose in last week’s post, I continued on my walk. A little further down the street, my dog was kind enough to point out a different rose bush in another neighbor’s yard.
Stopping to inspect the new discovery, I spotted these two roses that had bloomed within a few inches of each other. They weren’t as vibrantly red as the earlier rose and were more of a medium pink color.
However, the lack of vibrant red was actually an advantage. I have found over the years that highly saturated colors can very easily become overexposed to the point all detail in the overexposed areas are lost and cannot be recovered.
This can happen even if the rest of the photo is perfectly exposed. This seems to be particularly true with reds and yellows, and I have encountered this with each camera I’ve owned.
Like the previous photo, this image required little in the way of processing. I added some contrast, reduced the highlights on the rose petals, and lightened the shadows in the lower layer of leaves. Finally, I added a little texture and clarity and just a bit of vibrance to enhance the color of the roses.
In Photoshop, I desaturated the colors in the green leaves converting them to black and white while leaving the roses as they were. This gives the effect of pushing the leaves further into the background which draws the attention to the rose that have bloomed, as well as, the two rose buds.
What I like about this picture is how the placement of the two roses in the frame provide balance both vertically and horizontally. This avoids the bullseye effect seen in last week’s photo and makes this, in my opinion, a slightly stronger composition.