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Went to the botanical gardens with Taro the other day and decided to go into the greenhouses in the 40 degree heat.
Decided to try a series of backlit shots of leaves. Would appreciate critique and comment. It's the only way I'll learn.







Cheers

Hey Matt, I questioned Taro's thinking of going out on such a hot day, but some of these were well worth the effort.

#1 Great love the lighting, texture and patterns

#2 Isn't so strong for me.. the imperfections don't really interest me, but the detail in the veins is impressive... (the horizon isn't straight )

#3 I like the concept of this a lot.. the light and dark.. but I think it doesn't quiet nail it

#4 This is very very cool.. not only do you have the lovely lines of the palm frond but then you have the very seratted (sp?) edge to the shadow... Brillian!

#5 I like this one but found the 'hairy bit' on the left corner a little distracting (but great pick on such fine detail). I think this shot seems pretty well exposed considering the bright background and the shadowy foreground.

Matt

Thanks for sharing these.

#1 - excellent, would be just a notch better with no shadow top left IMHO

#2 - doesn't work for me for a number of reasons. Biggest for me is the diagonal line created by the centre of the leaf which breaks the image oddly. Probably breaks one of those "immutable" laws of composition too I also find the brown rust marks distracting. The real shot here for me would be a eggstream close up of the centre where you can actually see the cellular structure.

#3 - whereas the line leads my eye out of the shot in #2 it has the opposite effect. This is my pick of these. The image is made stronger by the impact of the dhadows since they have a clearly defined shape (as opposed to #1 where the shadow is a blurry distraction)

#4 - Anothe rexcellent use of light and dhade, just behind #3 in my view.

#5 - doesn't work for me. The high key lighting in the background distracts me too much from an examination of the interesting symmetry of the leaf structure.

Edit: I'd like to see a B & W of #5

I quite like all of them in their own way. The use of pattern and form is well defined and pleasing to the eye. Your composition and the back-lighting is excellent.

I like'em all. The shadow on number 4 is great.

Chris

Thanks for your comments people.
I tried my hand at some macro before these but they didnt work out too well so switched to this idea.
Peter, I tried a B&W with #5 but it didn't turn out right. Might revist it though.