Day 32–A Study in Plumaria

Canon D1000; ISO 1600; f8; 5.8mm

Today you actually get a picture that I took almost a year ago but never actually got around to doing anything with.

While in Peru for the biennial trip to visit the in-laws we were treated to lunch at the house of their friend, Rita. I didn’t want to bring along Old Faithful as this was a social occasion and sometimes I get lost behind the lens and don’t come up for air. I just wanted to enjoy the lunch and the company of Rita, who is a VERY interesting woman. But I did have Junior with me, my old faithful Canon point and shoot and so I snapped a few pictures of the fabulous Plumaria blossoms that Rita had decorating all her tables. Straight from her trees to her table.

But when I looked at the pictures back in March all I could see was the NOISE! The D1000 has a manual mode, which I like to employ, but when you bump the ISO up to 1600 (as far as this model will go) there is going to be grain. LOTS of grain, especially in the low light situation I found myself in. SO I said YUCK! to the photo and didn’t do anything with it. But thankfully I didn’t delete it. Funny how time changes how you look at a photo.

It is a snowy Saturday here at Chez Knit and I am in the midst of culling the overstuffed portfolio that is on the computer (photo hoarder that I am) and I realized that I hadn’t edited MOST of the photos that I took in Peru. I am flipping through the photos and there was this one.

And I stopped and really looked at it.

And I loved it.

I loved the graininess of it. And I knew that it needed to be in Black and White. I actually just used the B&W conversion that comes with PSE 11 rather than fiddling with some of my well loved pre-sets, putting it on another layer so that I could actually erase part of it to expose the yellow centers of the flower.