Spring and Summer Flowers 2013 w/ Textures

Spring always livens up our lives and no more so than if you are a photographer.  I always look forward to all my garden blooms popping out in the spring and watching as they develop.  It's always a fun time.  I just wish I had more time to spend with the camera and less time with the shovel and hoe, not to mention the Deer Scram and Liquid Fence.  It's said that hostas are analogous to "deer crack", and I can bear witness.

At any rate, I shot quite a few flowers this spring and seem to still be shooting them almost everywhere I go.  One thing that has changed this year is that I have started to blend my shots with some textures.  I originally started using other folks textural renderings to meld with my work, but have created, and continue to create, a collection of my own textures.  It's interesting how easy it is to do this once you have an idea of what works and what doesn't.  Anyway, I've got several hundred texture files to work with now and I really like some of the results.  Hope you do too.

This first one is a "Jack-in-the-Pulpit" with two different textures combined.  One of the textures is a shot of some burnt up grass with a vignette shot with a macro lens close up, overlayed by a shot of a Fiddleback Fern.  The grass shot was condensed to fit the frame and tighten the texture, and the fern was stretched to reduce it's dominance.  Of course the opacity has been reduced on both textures (15-25%).  I've created a mask of the flower so that is shows through with no textures overlayed on the flower and sharpening has been applied to the flower only.

"Jack-in-the-Pulpit"

This second one is a Dahlia with a mask and the texture is a photo of a piece of white cloth shot on a white background.  I have no clue what type of cloth it is, as it does not appear to be a woven fabric, but very random in nature.  I used the multiply blend mode in Photoshop on the texture layer and an opacity of 14%.  I think I stretched it a bit as well, but don't really remember.

This last one is called a Helleborus niger or CHRISTMAS ROSE.  It is a full frame shot with a very slight smokey background.  I cannot remember which texture I used on it, as the .psd file seems to have vanished at this point in time, however, I believe it was a yellowed piece of parchment, stretched and probably had a blending mode incorporated.  I do remember that the mask was only applied to the very center where the bud lives.  At any rate, it printed out magnificently and I actually sold a copy of it on Fine Art America.  Love it when that happens.

Helleborus niger or CHRISTMAS ROSE