bring on spring

Image captured tripod-mounted 4/23/11, 9:33am • Canon 5D, Canon EF50mm f/2.5 USM • 50mm, f/9.0, 1/6 sec, ISO 250 • off-camera speedlight below • minor adjustments made in Adobe Lightroom 2

Hopefully all the moms out there had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday. We sent this hibiscus image to our moms, so thought I'd post it here to share. With more than 20 days of precipitation (some of it being snow or freezing rain—yuck) in the month of April, we are very much looking forward to our promised May flowers any time now.

This image was shot in my living room of our friend Nicole's beautiful, peach hibiscus plant. I propped it on a chair in front of our patio door, letting the morning light pour over it. By placing an off-camera speedlight on the floor pointing up at the plant, it really brought out the veins and texture in the petals.

You would have laughed at the livingroom set-up...there were various items of green shades (t-shirts, balloons, paper...) strewn about in the background of this shot, draped over our tv, carpet and chairs. They were hiding the ugly background noise to create the darker black/green tones to contrast the brilliant colors of the plant.

Overall, I had fun with this shot and got to know my macro lens and speedlight a little better.

Good times!