"The White Nigella" photo posted

At the risk of becoming boring, I'm posting yet another photo of a beautiful Nigella flower, once again part of the series taken on my holidays - yes, that what happens when you're on holidays: you can take thousands of photos as you have all the time in the world!!

This one is a white one, and the beautiful spring sunlight catches the petals beautifully, on an angle. 

"The White Nigella" (c) Gilles Royer 2015

I've also posted it on my +500px page, at the following link: https://500px.com/photo/112540975/the-white-nigella-by-gilles-royer. So far, it's not doing bad, not as good as the "Floating Nigella" one I posted yesterday though. 

Let me know what you think...

"White Azalea" photo posted

This shot of a white azalea, taken in my front garden yesterday, under natural light, has been posted on my 500px gallery (http://500px.com/photo/84103847/white-azalea-by-gilles-royer) as well on the Kujaja.com site (http://www.kujaja.com/en/photo/39575)

Hope you enjoy. If you do, please leave me your comments / impressions

"White Azalea" (c) Gilles Royer 2014

The Story Behind... Coeur de Rose #2

I posted another macro image of the heart of a rose, titled "Coeur de Rose #2", on my 500px portfolio (http://500px.com/photo/63838513) - the first one posted a few days ago is also available here (http://500px.com/photo/63352323)

Coeur de Rose #2 (c) Gilles Royer 2014 - Nikon D200 / Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro / f/5.6 @ 1/160

This continues my series of macro shots taken in the garden. This one is from a bush of old-style white roses - as the roses were already planted when we arrived in the house, I'm not sure what exact species these ones are. I guess they are a type of Hybrid Rugosa, but can't be certain - please send me a note if you know.

As usual, I shot this one handheld, and under natural light, in the late afternoon sun.

I really enjoy shooting those macro pictures, where the subject is a detail of a flower (or another object, for that matter) - here, the stigmas (centre) and stamens are the stars, providing a sharp contrast of orange / yellow colours against the softer white background of the petals.

I tried a few different angles, and ended up with this one, looking from the side into the flower, (with the couple of petals in the foreground completely blurred out by a f/5.6 aperture. This also lets the sunlight hit directly the centre, and illuminate it.

I did a bit of editing in Aperture (which is the Apple software I use for both cataloguing my photos and doing most of the post-processing, where required) - I first cropped the shot a bit, to remove some of the green background (still a bit can be seen on the right-hand side), and then adjusted a few parameters; mainly increasing the definition and saturation, to enhance once again the centre of the shot, and magnify the details.

Thanks for reading!