A Dose of Pink in my Life

[airymist]

Hi! I am looking for some honest critiques on this shot. Its hard to get real opinions from my friends and family.
Thanks!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4055/4342449924_a29a17564a_o.jpg

[Iguanasan]

Welcome to the forum, Airymist! I'm sure you'll get what you are looking for here. I'll start with what I see...

I see a great photo! Nice work.

Fair bit of detail in the petals though I think it could use a touch more contrast.

The centre of the flower is in good focus but I'm thinking a larger DOF would have put the entire flower in focus which may have been more pleasing in this instance. I'm not a fan of having the left side out of focus for this shot. But that is really a matter of taste.

With respect to composition it's a closeup shot so it may be OK that the centre of the flower is in the centre of the photo but it is usually more pleasing seeing it on one of the thirds.

I hope this helps!

[airymist]

Thank you for your insight! ^.^
While I like this shot, I felt like it was lacking something... maybe having the flower centered is what is bothering me.

This one was also taken that day. Any feedback?

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4344386527_02a4101bd7_o.jpg

[MoinMoin]

Welcome airymist - I wish you much fun here.
The first photo is a very good rose picture. I love the colour and mostly the composition. There are just two points for me: Maybe you could give it a tit bit more sharpness with EBV. And you should not have cropped the upper rolling petal.
Sorry, the second has nothing special to catch the eye - there you should have had more part of the rose heart.

Do you know the name of the rose? I hope you'll show more of it! :highfive:

[Chantelle]

Hi, welcome!

I like both these shots, perhaps crop a bit of the right hand side of that second photo off, the image looks a bit too halved to me. More sharpness in both would make them better, and I agree with the contrast - especially in that first shot.

Well done over all :)

[Mad Aussie]

Welcome to the forums Airymist.

Shot 1 ... does lack contrast as others have mentioned. I think a quick level/curves adjustment here will work wonders for that though.
Being so close up I think attaining a large DOF was going to be difficult so it was important to choose exactly what part you really wanted sharp. On the sharpness, it looks not bad but could still be sharper I think..

Shot 2 ... is a big improvement in contrast and colour. Having some of the green bokeh also helps to make that beautiful apricot colour dance more. The sharpness here looks better to me also. Composition wise though I'd have liked to see more of the flower and less of the green bokeh/background. By including the center of the flower would have made this a stronger shot in my opinion.

[Richard]

Hi airymist, welcome to the community,

Once again I am in complete agreement with MA,

IMO shot is the better shot, I think the black/green background really adds to the composition. (Also if the shot was in used a magazine layout, it's a great place to add in text).

[Marko]

Welcome Airymist!
Yes MA is saving me from much typing these days :highfive:

I agree 100% with his critique. The only thing I might add is that shot 2 (my fave of the 2) might look great cropped as a square.

[jlabel]

Its interesting picture, you may want to try soft focusing this type of picture, playing with some plastic bag in the front of your lens

[airymist]

Thank you for the welcome everyone!!

What is EBV? I'm not familiar with that photo editing term. ^.^
But now that everyone mentions it, I can see how the first pic would benefit from added sharpness. I just got a tripod so I expect that my flower shots will have better focus from now on.

For the second picture, I actually purposely placed the flower in the left hand corner for a more dramatic shot and thought the green leaf on the side added a little dimension and contrast. Some people didn't see it that way haha. But it's always nice to see how people interpret my pics without any influence from me.

Using a plastic bag to create soft focus is new to me, but i'm intrigued by it. I'll have to try that sometime!

Once again thanks so much to everyone for your input and suggestions!

[Mad Aussie]

I used to use one of wifes stockings for soft focus. You can cut a hole in the stocking about 25 - 30mm in diameter and focus through that. The result is a nice soft outer area of the photo but the subject is sharp. Of course you can replecate this in photoshop etc anyway.

Not sure what the 'EBV' MM is talking about either.