Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by Shannon:
Although a very pretty picture, does not meet the challenge in my opinion.

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by cornettcag:
Beautiful colors

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by leonardj:
I like your lighting, color and focus. It does have the feel of an impending storm.

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by Artifacts:
Generally a nice image. DOF is OK and the focus is OK on the near flower. The composition is basically good. It is always best to take flower pictures away from direct sunlight like you have done here. You get better detail then.

This image has two issues that will cause it to get a low score. Connection to the challenge topic and technical quality.

Obviously you are going to be throttled for entering a flower picture in a darkness challenge. You are probably already aware of that.

On the technical side the contrast on this image is wrong. To prove this all you have to do is select autocontrast in your editing software and there will be a dramatic improvement and the image will look much better.

The blue of the foreground flower conflicts with the blue of the background shallow focused flower on the left. That makes it harder for the human eye to discern detail and therefore we don't like the image as much. To avoid this you should have just removed the middle background flower or repositioned so the color conflict was not in the composition.

The focus is not bad. Generally speaking, though, razor sharp focus works best with floral images and this is a little on the soft side.

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by colourBlind:
It's definitely a great photo, but I feel that it relies too heavily on the title to show a connection to the challenge. Lovely blue hues here.

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by barbaraanne:
maybe I am missing something from the title, but I don't understand how this meets the challenge, however it is a lovely picture of the flower and the colour is beautiful

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by _Io_:
nice photo, but how is it meeting the challenge?

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by LevT:
it's a nice photo, but it does not leave a particularly dark feeling, and the strom can only be found in the title. You'd need some sky to transmit the feeling of storm, otherwise it just feels like a dusk.

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by timlu:
Darkness??? I really don't see it. Otherwise a nice photo.

Before the Storm
by admart01

Comment by heydandy:
IMO, it does not meet the challenge in any way.