At the flower market

I was on the fence as to which forum to put these pictures in, but in the end I decided that since lighting is my greatest issue, I'll put them here.

First, let me introduce the place. It is the weekend flower market in Taipei, one of my favorite places on earth. On weekdays is a parking lot under a highway overpass. But on weekends, the asphalts speaks flowers and greenery instead. To me, it's a magical oasis full of fragrance and life, but in the pictures I take it comes out as some sort of botanical dystopia full of wan, mauve flowers and a poisonous greenish mist settling over everything.

1.

See what I mean? Yuck. The color of the flower is actually more like this (a picture caught in good light).
# Flash used: Yes (manual)
# Focal length: 21.0mm (35mm equivalent: 31mm)
# Exposure time: 0.125 s (1/8)
# Aperture: f/8.0
# ISO equiv.: 800

2. Here's another one.

The flower caught some good sunlight from the gap between green plastic awnings. But the primary impression comes from the harsh fluorescents hitting the spray from the misters.
# Flash used: No
# Focal length: 18.0mm (35mm equivalent: 27mm)
# Exposure time: 0.017 s (1/60)
# Aperture: f/3.5
# ISO equiv.: 800

So what can I do, either through equipment, adjusting the white balance or in terms of flash to bring out the lushness and rich color of the plants there?

Wide Angle, Harsh lights

This is my personal taste:

I would shoot longer than 31 mm. The images are too wide for the subject. Can you get/do they make a Macro lense for your camera? I would crop in close to the images. The 2nd one is at 3.5 - which may be as open as you get. You appear to be shooting into the lights that are difficult too.

Just a few things to think about.

You have a couple easy to fix problems....

My eye doesn't know what it supposed to look at. In the first frame, you have all those cool squiggly lines from the lights that pull my attention away from the flower, then you have a disembodied arm there than one needs to make sense of. Generally, your subject should be YOUR SUBJECT and it should dominate the frame -- and, like a sculptor, remove the stuff that is not your subject from the frame. In the second frame my eyes are pulled to the ceiling lights -- pulling attention away from the plants. The fix for this problem is to just get closer -- use your feet to zoom in. (But you'll still be left with a light problem.)

The light on your subject in your first shot looks flat -- but in the second shot, it looks far more interesting.

The second frame is more interesting because the light is more interesting. I one of the most sure fire ways to take a bad picture is use a camera-mounted flash to be your primary light -- as it is in the first frame. It washes out contrast and color. These two shots demonstrate that pretty well -- the second shot (without flash) is far more vivid. So, the easy fix is to not use the camera mounted flash.

So I'd say, don't buy a longer lens yet... go back there and leave your flash at home. And get closer to your subjects! (Then buy a longer -- and faster-- lens ).

Shoot raw if you can too -- and adjust white balance to taste in post processing.

Ron

I am not able to see your images at all.