Yes, very nice image Jonathan. I love the "soft" tonal range, perfect for the subject.Did you add a little glow, I think maybe yes, but very tastefully done.

Hey mooch, you been real quiet lately??? Busy reading 1x forums I guess... BTW, this image fits this Topic perfectly!! As does Will's:
www.vazaar.com/topic:bokeh/photos/id:33698/
and
www.vazaar.com/topic:bokeh/photos/id:24883/
and
www.vazaar.com/topic:bokeh/photos/id:33691/
just to beat a dead horse...

Sorry to hijack your image Jonathan...

The only adjustments on this, actually, are a bit of desaturation and some curves to pop out the whites.

Bravo!!

An absolutely amazing photo!!! One of my new favorites!

this is amazing!
the tones are wonderful...
adn the photo itself is soo soft..
you can almost reach out and touch the flower and feel the textures...
great shot!

If you are quoting this:

"An extremely shallow depth of field, a common effect of macro lenses, emphasizes bokeh"

I feel vindicated. Shallow DoF does emphasize bokeh but shallow DoF is not bokeh.

I'm referring to the article specifically concerned with bokeh to be found on wiki:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

All images on that page show bokeh. With one exception; the example without bokeh.

The thread you have initiated should help to clarify.

This is starting to get ridiculous, the image of the page of text most definitely has bokeh. The caption would make no sense at all if it didn't. If the image has no bokeh, how can the image's bokeh be emphasized???

I have never suggested that shallow dof is the same as bokeh. Bokeh, pleasing or ugly, is, however, one result of shallow dof. And my contention is that it is ALWAYS a result of it, regardless of the background. If the background has points of light or other hight contrast areas, then there will be circle shapes in the bokeh. If the background is simple and low contrast like the one above, then there will not be any circles in the bokeh. There are thousands of examples of images on the internet with beautiful bokeh, but no circle or hexagon shapes in it.

This page is a good representation of what I am saying:
www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/662530/2

If you scroll down this page of images, every single image has bokeh, some have circle shapes in the bokeh, some do not. The presence or absence of circle shapes is totally dependent on the content of the background of each shot. But, surely you cannot point to any one image on that page and say it does not have bokeh, can you?

I don't know nothing about nothing. but the person that wrote the description of this topic was asking for:
About "Bokeh"
Created by Syam
Superb blur backgrounds with small depth of field.

:)

Beautiful image, lovely bokeh! :)

Wow. I didnt know that this topic could get subjective. Anyway lets just have fun and creativity with photography!

Hey mooch, does this one work for you???

Very pretty image, great fit for the Topic!!

I really like this shot. Perfect bokeh Kevin. I love the glow of those little baubles!

Bokeh ?

I thought it was out of focus. :)

Thanks for the comments.

cool :)

eyes and expression make this excellent!

Mooch, thx for the fave! Amy, thx for the feedback - much appreciated.

Best,
Jon

Can't really add much to what has been said. This is lovely!!

Thx, Clyde. Hard to go wrong with such a beautiful subject!

Cheers,
Jon

I can almost sense what she's thinking just by looking at her. Excellent portrait.

I really like the contrast of color in this photo, I think it would've been interesting to have a closer shot of the bird on top of the sign! Good job!

As others have said, the potential is there in your scene/subject, but: the focus is off and the composition lacks imagination. I agree with Noah that the most interesting part of this scene that you could have explored is the bird and the sign.

Amy, I also agree with the comments above. The green is so very interesting with the bird I am wondering how this would look as a subject for selective saturation of a b&w conversion.

Thanks for the comments. Tweaked and reposted here: www.vazaar.com/user:warreagle/photos/id:33093/

I think this is very clever, with the bird sitting on top of the 9. Great idea.
Cropping is nice, other than that, just a bit of unsharp mask, and I'd leave the rest as is.
I quite like it.

If the RAW-file permits, it would be nice with another crop, which IMO could give more balance to the composition. I would crop away 1/3 to the left ad add 1/3 to the right. Is that possible?

Lars :-)

I agree with Lars about the compo. I really like the graphic feel that your treatment and saturation have created here. Nice job with that.

Nice abstract - great saturated colors

Somewhere in the southwest, U.S. I would guess?? Looks a lot like the sky from this past Sunday in southern California. Where was this taken, I'm gonna guess Arizona...

Yep, Catalina State Park in Oro Valley, Arizona. Took it last week.

I like the composition a lot. I like the shallow depth of field too. I feel this photo screams out for color though. I'm curious as to why you didn't shoot this in color? It could be my monitor, but the tones seem a bit muddy.

Hi, Tamara, I don't mind the b&w choice, but I agree with Smooch about the tonal range.

Hi, thank you both for your comments. Originally I shot this in color (like all my photo's) but I thought it may look more powerfull in b&w. Just experimenting.
About the tonal range: I think it's always hard to choose between a lot of contrast but loose some details that way or less contrast and let the details visible.

the composition and the details of the flowers and the butterflies are great! and i do agree that the b&w really does make it more dramatic. its also kind of unexpected..which makes it just that more interesting.

This image seems overall to be a bit low quality, but a great location and a great moment. The biggest specific thing that can be corrected is the tilt. the far horizon is straight in nature and should be in your image. The color balance can also be corrected to eliminate the greenish tint in the sky, very easy to do in most image editing software.

I agree with the tilt. I processed this image heavily when scanning it from film and actually intended the greenish look of the sky whereas the foreground was rather brownish. I have the graduation curves settings saved so I can adjust them and rescan the image in order to achieve a bluer sky, but I personally like the sky the way it is.

jap der grüne himmel macht den charme von dem bild eigentlich aus, genauso wie das lilanische tal (lilanisch, cooles wort :))

Image quality a little suspect and apart from the tilt, needs a little crop at the bottom.

i personally think that the sky is great as it is...
it gives it a more unique and interesting tone..
and it works very well with the purple-ish colored mountains.

I agree with Jeff. Not a fan of borders, but this one is not too distracting for me. I think the flow is very nice and really need the lower left to work, so no, it's not "boring"

I think that you have followed your ABC's for this and I love both the composition and the colours. I especially like the foreground and the delicacy of those flowers.

Did you dodge those flowers to get them to contrast so well against the water?

If you mean the ones that are in the lower left corner, yes. I set the dodge tool to 2% and dodged them in a little very carefully. But I did some dodging and burning on other parts of the image too, so, could be...

the detail of the flowers...is great
and the reflection...is just amazing...
an utter copy of the sky...
just beautiful