Dandelion clock (5)

Another view of a dandelion clock, photographed in my garden in May 2014. I like the shallow depth of field in this shot and converting it to monochrome further simplifies it.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/4.5, 1/250s, 90mm, hand held.

Giant dandelion sculpture catching the sunlight at Trentham Gardens.

This lovely sculpture, which I photographed last week, is one of 12 at Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire. Each one is 5m tall with a seed head over a metre wide. They fit in beautifully with their surroundings between the lake and meadows.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/11, 1/160s, 35mm, hand held.

Abstract view of the centre of a dandelion clock.

I took this in May 2014 in my garden. I've done quite a few different views of dandelion clocks - they're great to experiment with. This is the most abstract so far. I like how the cropped in view takes away perspective, but it looked a bit dull in monochrome so I played about with split toning. I suppose choice of colour is down to personal taste - this one works for me. I used very similar shades of green for both highlights and shadows, but much higher saturation for the highlights. I think it makes the outer edges look like exploding fireworks. It would be interesting to try mixing together lots of different colours in the same image - no doubt it's possible in Photoshop, but I haven't got the patience!

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/5, 1/250s, 90mm, hand held.

Dandelion clock (4)

Another one from my garden tonight - taken in May last year. This was part of a group of dandelion clocks - I wanted to use a shallow depth of field to isolate one of them. I cropped the photo down to change the orientation to portrait and reduce the number of flower heads in view. Converting to black and white also helped to draw your eye to the main flower head.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/4, 1/320s, 90mm, hand held.

Dandelion clock (3)

I took this photo just under a year ago in my garden. I've posted 2 previous photos of dandelion clocks - this one differs in that it's not quite as close-up. You can see its stalk and there's some nice negative space around it, which I emphasised by de-saturating the greens. I left the yellows and orange in, though, as they draw your eye into the dandelion clock.

Camera/lens settings: ISO 100, f/4, 1/640s, 90mm, hand held.

Dandelion clock (2)

This is another photo from the group of images I took in my garden in May this year. The original image was a wider shot of the dandelion clock head with a blurred green background (similar to the one I posted on Sept 13th). I wanted to see whether a closer crop would work, and I really like the outcome.

In Lightroom, I increased contrast and vibrance to get a bit more 'zing' out of the colours and textures. Then I used a square crop to emphasise the symmetry and added a slight dark vignette to emphasise the spherical shape.

Dandelion clock

A macro shot this time. Here's a dandelion clock from my garden in April this year.

No post-production changes.