A couple of months ago my wife and I were travelling to our farm near Matjiesfontein when we decided to have a short coffee break. As usual, I utilized this opportunity to quickly scan the area. Not far from the road I came across a plant of Cotyledon orbiculata (the beautiful form that used to be called undulata).
This picture shows my first attempt of photographing the plant.
It is not a bad photo, but neither does it convey the feeling I got when looking at the subject.
After cropping the picture this is what I got. Much better I thought, but too realistic.
Cropping in a slightly different way, combined with darkening the picture and enhancing the colours, resulted in this.
It seemed to me I was on the right track, but now the left side of the photo was too busy and distracting.
I had also made another picture, almost identical to the first one, but taken from a slightly different angle. When I closely compared the two, it became clear that the second one would be the best starting point for the picture I wanted.
I first treated the picture the same way as in number 3 and the lowered the contrast.
This is the end result, realistic enough to be of botanical value, but at the same time visually stimulating.