Flower Photo Competition 3 2013 : Entry Number 88

A tight crop, beautiful post production and a wonderful subject create an atmosphere, which draws the observer right into this frame. Romantic and nostalgic, that are impressions which we get, after looking into this photo for some time. 'Aged Beauty' could be a possible title for this image. Despite that I'm considering this image being even stronger if positioned sideways (landscape format), this photo is clearly the winner of this competition! Thank you for sharing this superb capture!

My name is Cassandra Pfaff, and I'm from the suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA. I am a graphic designer, product photographer and yoga instructor. The flowers were from my mother's funeral in January - the arrangement was beautiful and kept becoming more compelling as the flowers dried, this was taken about 6 months after I received them. The flowers never became fragile as they dried, instead becoming soft and fabric-like, which was my goal here to capture.

This image was taken on my Canon 40D w/ the 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro outside on my deck mid-afternoon. Minimal post production went into this shot - mostly taking down the saturation a bit to soften the feel. I never thought about turning the shot sideways, but I will definitely give it another look in that format. Thanks so much for choosing my image, I am very excited to be chosen among all the fantastic images that were submitted. I thought the image was strong enough to be in contention, but was very surprised to be first!