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One of the most photographed flowers must surely be the Gerbera.
With its vivid colours, round, heavily petalled flower head and detailed stigma/stamen cluster a single flower makes a striking subject.
I photographed this example indoors by a window on a cloudy day, to keep the contrast levels within the capabilities of the Fuji Velvia film I was using at the time.
A simple piece of black card served as a backdrop, providing a nice counterpoint to the delicate pink flower and thus allowing the colours to really pop.
For this photo I bucked the trend of using minimal depth of field to produce an artistic blur, and instead went for the smallest aperture my lens could achieve, providing a sharp zone of focus over the entire flower.
I think this approach has worked well in this case, although normally I like the limited depth of field approach.
Filename - gerbera 03.jpg
Camera - Canon A1
Lens - 70-210mm zoom
Film - Fuji Velvia ISO50
Exposure - No idea!
Location - My kitchen, North Wales
This image - 800x511px JPEG
Original - 2400dpi scan from 35mm transparency
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Tripod used to prevent camera movement during long exposure
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