Canon EOS 60D ,Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 Macro II USM
1/400s f/14.0 at 38.0mm iso800

Last Sunday, on a stroll through San Diego Botanic Garden, I found this plant, or more precisely, this branch of a larger plant. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a name tag, and I didn’t inquire about it, so at this point I can’t say what it is.

This photo illustrates an excellent way of isolating a subject against the background. The scene was naturally lit such that the plant in the foreground was in bright sunlight, but the bushes or trees in the background were completely in the shade. I purposely underexposed by 2/3 of a stop in the camera to make sure that there would be no blown out highlights on the plant.

I didn’t do any further adjustments to exposure or contrast in post-processing. I could have easily darkened the background further to make it uniformly black, but I like the hint of texture that is left in it.