At a local park to photograph birds, but this caught my eye and I liked that I had a clean background.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
I don’t do a lot of floral (hope to do more this year) so any advice is appreciated. I liked this for the simplicity, color, and background.
Technical Details
Canon R5; 100-500 at 500 mm; 1/160 at f16; ISO 250
Allen, this is really well composed. The areas that are in focus make the image, in my opinion. Of course it would be nice to get the whole think in focus, but barring Focus Stacking, that’s pretty impossible. The background is wonderful, making the willows stand out. I also think the colors are fantastic.
Killer composition and placement. P-ssy willow flowers always look like fireworks to me and this is no exception. The light, while harsh, gives a lot of definition and modeling. It’s an interesting mix of crisp and OOF. Good job recognizing that background, too. There are a bunch on the road down from the house, but they’re in a ton of other bushes so nothing so clean as this.
OMG I can’t even type pu ssy willow. I guess the software doesn’t care for that term.
Thanks @Kris_Smith and @David_Bostock for your kind comments. I probably had the wrong lens for this and a tripod, macro lens, and stacking might have been better. I will say this, that without what I’ve learned at NPN I would have just taken this shot without thoughts of the background, but I moved around until the background was clean. I realized I wasn’t going to get all the buds in focus, so I concentrated on one of them.
You found a great but always difficult subject and got a clean shot! Composition is excellent and I think the DOF is fine. We have some down the road but the wind won’t stop until about June.
