Shot this Zinnia at the Ankley Farm in Imlay City, MI.  Used my Fuji X-T30 MKll and Tamron 18-300 lens.  f/25 @ 1/30sec ISO2000.

Did a square crop of the flower center, sharpened the image and changed the color from the original red to what you see here.

Here is the original out of the camera.

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I’ve been experimenting with silk flowers purchased from a local crafts store and I have to admit that they look very real. The one problem with photography them is that the fine texture in the silk fabric can be seen in the photos. It is not as noticeable to the naked eye, but the camera and lens sees all. I think these will work out great by adding some artistic filters which will help hide the textures of the silk fabric. The Topaz Impression program or the Glow program Topaz recently released will work great for processing these silk flowers.

I just set them up on my stairway where I have great natural lighting from a large window on the second story of my foyer and using one of my background prints. Holding the subjects with a Wimberley Plamp.

So far, I’ve worked with a rose, sunflower, and the two calla lilies you see here.

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Here are my three favorites from my first shoot with the silk flowers. I’ll post some different flowers in future.

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FLOWER PHOTO CLUB - Mike Moats - Award Winning Macro Photographer

Lately I've been having fun shooting group of flowers rather than single flowers.  This one is not a group of a flower but a group of flower and buds, plus I like that shooting the backside of the flower is a different perspective.

Fuji X-T30 MKll Tamron 18-300, f/5.6 @ 1/100sec, ISO2000

Creative post processing done in Smart Photo Editor.

The original out of the camera.

FLOWER PHOTO CLUB - Mike Moats - Award Winning Macro Photographer

I don't like articles that have been written about me in photo sites, or magazines, as they always seemed to get all the info I gave the interviewer wrong, but this one I was very happy with.

https://photofocus.com/inspiration/the-world-up-close-a-conversation-with-mike-moats/?fbclid=IwAR2lzjoxjctDU-PbQHi5gW4kh8eDMgriV9uEg0Hc1t6NJtyd8eQEWaSTYn8

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Over the years I've posted many images with unique lighting effects, and sometimes people ask how that lighting happened, assuming it was done with a flash(s) or another light source. 

If you have followed me over the years, you know I have never used a flash system, and only on a very rare occasion would i use a handheld LED light for a little fill light in a dark area of a subject, but like I said, that is very rare when that happens.

Any special effects in the lighting of my images comes from post processing.  Lately most have been created in Smart Photo Editor, and in the past, I have used Nik Software's Color Efex Pro. 

When I process an image, I don't say I'm going to add a special lighting effect to it, I just go into Smart Photo Editor and click through the pages of special effects filters, and if I happen to see a lighting effect filter that works, I'll go with it.  

Examples of lighting effects added in post processing.

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