Flower Photo Competition 4 2014 : Results

Judges Comment
We love this photo for so many reasons, and also, that is a real story behind this image. An elderly, very well dressed woman, is holding a few nicely put together flowers in her hand. The button on her coat also symbolises a flower. The light/shadow is beautifully captured, and the execution of this photo is superb. Congratulations to the winner of this I-Shot-It Flower competition!
Photographers Comment
WOW... I am humbled and deeply appreciative. I was shooting a wedding and the bride was running late ( It's true). While waiting, family was gathered around in front of the venue conversing and I saw this lady standing patiently holding this bouquet. I took the shot using a Canon D60 (older model) with a Sigma 28 70 f2.8 lens. Setting were ISO 200 @ F22, no flash 1/180 of a sec. Lens was at 70 mm. Cropping was minor as I try to crop in the view finder. I used LR 3.6 to make minor adjustments in the shadows and contrast.
rtapstudios.smugmug.com/Weddings/Weddings

Judges Comment
Seeing blue flowers in nature is something that doesn’t happen too often. This capture is superb! Great composition, the depth of field and how colour is being treated in this image makes this one of our favourites.
Photographers Comment
Thanks for the mark of excellence and the inspiring comments! I am Johann Papendorf, a retired South African schoolteacher. I took this photograph in April this year at the Johannesburg Zoo with my Nikon D3100. I was photographing reptiles when I happened to look up and saw this flower. I just had to photograph it!
www.i-shot-it.com/competition-photo.php?id=542d29dfb38b0

Judges Comment
This photo makes us think of spring! New life on a rainy day. A lovely and positive photo with great composition.
Photographers Comment
My name is Alexandra Hollstein. I shot the photo at our garden in the middle of Germany. The camera I have used is Canon EOS 550 D. Only the contrast and brightness were reworked.
www.alexandrahollstein.de

Judges Comment
This is another photograph which is one of our favorited. Lovely colours, showing a butterfly on a sunflower. Well spotted. Also showing this image in a square format works well.
Photographers Comment
Thank you for the recognition! I am honored. This was taken while on vacation in St. George Island, Florida. The beach house we stayed in had beautiful landscaping with many flowers. The butterflies were plentiful and very active. Shot with Sony A7 and 700-200 f4.

Judges Comment
Almost hidden in a field of green pokes out this poppyseed flower. Beautifully seen and executed. Congratulations to this image!
Photographers Comment
Thanks for the mark of excellence and for the comment. I took this picture close to my home (South of France). I used a Canon 5d mark II and a 70-300 lens at 300 for this picture.

Judges Comment
Composition and execution of colour make this photo so amazing. The movement and out of focus of the little seeds in the background, as well as the yellow flower in the foreground give this photo a great depth of field.

Judges Comment
We can imagine, that these are the last rays of sunlight - only minutes before the evening shows up. The natural light in this photo is superb. Very well spotted and thank you for submitting this photo.
Photographers Comment
Thank you, it's very nice when your biggest passion gets rewarded:-) I'm Petra van der Luer and I'm Dutch. Since we have two small dogs that we don't want to leave behind, we usually go on vacation or for weekend trips to Germany, a country that has a lot to offer and is very dog friendly. My favorite places are the Saarland and around Baden Baden. This picture was shot near the holiday home in the mountains above Bad Herrenalb, in the late afternoon, with the Nikon 1, a camera that I absolutely love even though it has a smaller sensor. I always shoot in RAW, but my post processing is still a bit hindered by my lack of proper tools: I do not have a big computer screen for instance. Also like natural looking photos, so I try to get it right while shooting and not through processing later on. If I remember correctly I did some noise reduction, straightened the photo, and adjusted the curves a little bit.

Judges Comment
First thought that comes to the judge’s mind when looking at this photo is, that this could be an image of of a movie. Maybe “Paris Texas”? Bare land and then a bit of life in form of this yellow flower. Well seen!
Photographers Comment
Thanks for the mention of my photography. I took that at Mt. Etna ( Sicily ) with a Leica M240 and Summicron 50mm, almost no post processing. It's really a bare land, all black, a color of life cames just from a few flowers there. Thanks again!!!
www.zphoto.com

Judges Comment
This almost could be a scene from the underwater world. How the two yellow flowers stand out from their background. Fantastic!
Photographers Comment
This was a full mid-day sun shot of cactus blossoms and buds taken with a Nikon D90 and 105mm macro but used as a prime lens. These flowers open after dawn and stay open until they are enveloped by late afternoon shadow, then close. They bloom only one day and wither away. I imagined them collecting sunlight during the day, remaining open at night to release that stored sunlight, illuminating nearby unopened buds waiting for their day in the sun, thus the title. Extensive post-processing to achieve this effect.
lensafield.com