White Balance

Copy and paste the link below or click on the post title "White Balance" to go to a short article about White Balance:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6455684/White-Balance

End of...the Season

our garden,

long past prime...

bleeding hearts

Another Dragonfly...

Yes, another dragonfly picture. I like this one a bit better than the first I posted. This has a softer entry into the frame--the triangle of grasses doesn't come in quite as abruptly from the lower edge, allowing the insect to float upwards. The stem on which the dragonfly is perched is angled in the opposite direction as the grass stems in the background, lending a bit of tension to the image. And I like how the two dewy strands of spiderweb recapitulate the dewy whiteness of the wingtips.
What I don't like--I wish I had used a shallower depth-of-field, so the background grasses would be just a bit less distinct and distracting. Often a change from f8 to f5.6 will be enough to give you a softer background. Of course, I know that in theory--I just wish I had thought of it in the field. This would be difficult to blur in Photoshop because of all the interacting lines, some foreground or subject, some background.

AUTUMN HAIKU

Composites---Imagination at Work!

I couldn't show dragonfly photographs without posting this one. One of my favorite images, it is entirely made up. It was composed of 4 different photographs and put together in Photoshop.
Reeds, insect, moon, and clouds--all from different times and places. The only common denominator--my imagination.

What I like:
The monotonic, dreamy softness of it.

What I don't like:
Not much. I'm not sure that the perspective of the moon is totally believable in terms of size and sharpness.

Any comments?