Thistles

What technical feedback would you like if any?

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

(If the background has been replaced, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)

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Hi Larry, You picked a beautiful subject here. I really like the left stem tin the photograph and the composition of the two clusters. Unfortunately, the depth of the lower right cluster puts a lot of the blooms out of focus and given the overlap, it’s a bit confusing to my eye. Also it looks like you stopped down to try to get enough depth of field for the flowers, but that threw the background into closer focus, so it’s starting to compete with the subjects. About the only way to avoid that in an image like this is to use focus stacking-if you look at some of Phil Hodgkins images, you’ll see excellent examples of that technique. The colors of the thistle blooms are excellent as is the detail in the blooms.

I look forward to seeing more of your images here.

Larry: I pretty much agree with what Dennis said. You could also diminish the impact of the BG by cropping tighter, especially on the right and top. I would also be tempted to make the red spot above the main subjects go away. I added a fairly strong vignette as well. Great to have you aboard and looking forward to more. >=))>

Your changes have improved the image providing more focus on the main subject. Thank you.

I think the suggestions made have been very good, Larry - I’ll simply say you’ve caught the main flowers nice and sharp, and it’s so good to see flowers photographed with some indication of their setting, even though that can present difficulties.

I really can’t add much to what has been said to this. As pointed out, cropping is most helpful. I tried the same route Bill tried. I also desaturated and darkened the mid-tones, moving the hue from yellow to green.