Weekly Photo Challenge: Monochromatic

I’ve been doing some work in the yard, weeding and the like.  The butterfly bush is beginning to lose it’s blooms, but they aren’t completely gone yet, so one morning I put aside my gardening tools and took out my camera instead.  When I got the photos on my computer I decided to give HDR processing a try with them, to bring out the detail in the flowers.  I was pleasantly surprised to end up liking this monochromatic version best:

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

For this particular photo I was using my 50mm lens with a magnifying lens attached.  I used a high ISO in part to deal with the low light and in part to be able to use a high shutter speed.

Here is the original middle exposure of the bracketed photos:

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

In the monochromatic version, I liked the way the purple blooms were transformed to very white.  Most times, I use HDR for what it brings out in the detail, this time, what I liked most was it did for the tone of the image. For me, this was and interesting case of using a technique for one result and ending up with something unexpected. How about you, when was the last time your photo editing turned out an unexpected result?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!