Asteraceae (Giant Dandelion)

I knew for some time this was something I wanted to shoot. I found one in a field and brought it home where it sat for a very long time. I have seen many different photos on the internet depicting these seeds and it filled my head with ideas. I had the whole head of seeds still intact and I wanted to know how I was going to shoot this before I regretted breaking the head and seeds up. Ultimately I decided to keep it very simple and to shoot a single isolated seed.

 I did a setup and shot some images, learnt a couple of lessons from that process and then reshot the image. I went through the seeds to find a more defined “S” curve stem, and strong feathers perpendicular to the “s”. I then printed it out at A2 size, scrutinised it and reshot the work. I changed the lighting, the seed, the background and the editing to achieve this final end result which I am delighted with. So this image now represents version 3 of this process. Below is an earlier attempt which is very similar but not as refined as I was after.

 The dandelion seed is a great subject matter as I am quite sure there are still many, many other ways I could tackle it photographically. However that will have to form part of a different series of work as my current image perfectly suits the collection “Botanicals” feature here.