This is the third from the last post I will be making to In Focus Daily for 2012. It’s the antepenultimate post. Look THAT up in your Funk and Wagnall’s! Since I’m so close to finishing two years of daily posts with an almost perfect record (yesterday’s post didn’t get published until about 2 AM this morning but I purposely backdated it, perfectionist that I am–a little too anal maybe?) I wanted to make sure I posted something today that reflects one of the main reasons I started this blog: to improve my photography skills, and in particular, learn how to focus.
My first tendency was to post this shot straight out of the camera, harking back to my first 18 months when I obsessed about making sure I posted everything SOOC, not realizing that RAW shots are imperfect and require processing. Thank you, Scott Kelby for finally drilling that into my head. The credit should actually go to my friend and fellow photoblogger, Melinda, who tried unsuccessfully to get that information through my thick skull starting two years ago. So, I made a few modest tweaks to clarity, contrast, whites, and blacks and then realized I needed to crop the tiniest bit of green leaf protruding from the bottom left.
I love lilies and I brought these red lilies to Famous Mo’s party last night and, since no one will be there for a couple of days, I brought them back home with me after the party. I used a combination of natural light from the transom over the door and the incandescent light in the entry, with a black background to isolate the blossoms from an otherwise busy background.
Focal Length 70mm
ISO 100
f/9
5 seconds