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After the last two posts I feel the need for colour, and what can be more colourful than the bright yellow petals of perennial rudbeckia against the deep blue of an early autumn sky? In our garden we have a few clumps of these striking and long-lasting flowers. They are a variety of coneflower, one of four genera (including Echinacea) of the Asteraceae family, and are especially useful in bringing strong, bright colour to the garden after the flowers of high summer have faded.
My usual view of these blooms is against the leafy backdrop of the borders in which they reside. So, their yellow sits alongside green. However, for this photograph I made the conscious decision to get down low with the camera - in fact I held it at arms length inside the clump - and photograph upwards to place their colour and the shape of the flower heads against the plain blue of the sky. In the RGB colour model wheel blue and yellow are opposite each other. This makes them complementary colours. A feature of such pairs is that when they are placed next to one another the effect is to increase each colour's visual intensity. As the evenings begin to draw in and the first misty mornings remind us that summer is waning, photographing vibrant colours of this sort is my way of hanging on to something of the departing warmth and sun.
photograph and text © Tony Boughen
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
