After looking at other photos with textured backgrounds, I realized that if the background was mostly transparent, it would work with a foreground with a lot of detail. So I worked on the Scarlet Leather flower again, this time with rain drops as the background.
My first effort working with the flower photo wasn’t successful, that’s for sure.
This photo of a tall, metal sunflower is overlaid onto a stone background photo. I had to learn how to do this for my photography homework. A little secret I’ll share with you: This was not my first effort. Nor my second. Not even my third.
This was hard. Not the overlaying part using the software; the video had good instructions. No, the hard part was seeing. Seeing which objects would make good foreground subjects and which backgrounds would blend well with a foreground object.
Oh, I had the perfect composite photo in mind. I visualized a beautiful red flower atop a pebbled black-and-white background. I took both these photos at McKinney Falls State Park on my Sunday hike.
My problem was that I didn’t remember all the green stuff surrounding the flower. It’s kind of hard not to notice, but I wanted a red flower and that’s all I saw. I was quite surprised when I overlaid the two and ended up with this. Oops.
Looks like some kind of reptilian skin. I worked on it for quite a while. I tried to remove as much green as possible but when I did that, I lost the red as well. I don’t really know what I’m doing with the software (it’s new to me), so don’t blame it.
Rats. I tried again, with a different object: the rabbit. The rabbit has a strong outline and is opaque. Okay, that is true but I still had junk in the background. Here’s the rabbit with its original background.
At the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
That’s when I figured out that the object would best be served with a washed-out original background. I ended that photography homework session without any acceptable results.
A short time later I was driving into town and just as I was getting close to the nursery (which is on the way) I remembered they had a tall, metal sunflower and bluebonnet out front. And it was a grey, cloudy morning! Maybe this will work, I thought. I stopped and photographed the sunflower. I had my camera with me, of course!
I looked for a textured background that would merge well with the sunflower and tried the stone I photographed Sunday morning. Yes! That composite photograph is the one I submitted for my homework.
I am learning something new everyday.
A favorite flower growing in McKinney Falls State Park.
Clematis texensis
I returned home with lots — hundreds! — of flower photographs from the Dallas Blooms event at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.
Our honeysuckle vine is starting to bloom. The bees are already busy.
It's a long story ... 