Macro Flower Retry

[mtb'n ski]

I retried the backlit flower shot i posted yesterday. I made the backlight a bit more extreme,which brought out the shadow, and used a simpler backround. I think however i may have gone to extreme with the backlight this time.... what do you guys think

[PhotoGimp]

It doesn't seem to work in this shot. Try this. Get two desk lamps about 40-60watt bulbs and put one on one side, and one on the other, diffuse them if they are too strong. And don't use flourecent. As you compose, try to keep all stray light from hitting your eyes infront of the camera, I use a pillowcase over my head and a big eyecup on my SLR. Now this I find works great as i can see the shadows, highlights etc, and I can play with the lighting BEFORE I take the picture. What two lights do is one acts as the sun and one acts as your flash. i finds this works in MOST cases. Give that a try and post some more pics. Good luck

[Chunk]

I retried the backlit flower shot i posted yesterday. I made the backlight a bit more extreme,which brought out the shadow, and used a simpler backround. I think however i may have gone to extreme with the backlight this time.... what do you guys think

I like the more muted color and obvious translucency of the petals as well as the plain background. I think bouncing just a bit of light back into the darker parts may help it a bit. An alternative to that would be to try something like this quick and dirty curves adjustment to bring up the darkest tones and details in the shadowed parts. I like the yellow light in the shadow that this brings out.
I like the complementary blue light that you have in the dark background and how it strengthens the muted yellow.

[mtb'n ski]

Thank you for taking the time to play with it in PS Chunk, and for the ligting idea Photogimp. Im tempted to cut my losses on this one, but I really like the backlit idea so I'm gonna try this one more time to see if I can make it work. (I need to find a new flower source though, my mom yelled at me for plucking from a boquet )