Gloriousby
BooZonComment by e301: From an occasional critique clubber ...
Quite why so very many people decided that a Botany challenge should be a Flower challenge defeats me ... but you've nevertheless done an OK job with this. Your notes are useful in telling why it didn't do better, actually - I can't imagine that 'auto' both levels and contrast is really going to give you satisfying texture in your final image - they are processes designed to bring everything to visibility, and real depth of texture and detail in a shot require a great deal more fine-tuning. I would imagine that playing with the other controls in PS would give you some idea of what you might have got out of the shot; certainly in a dpc-friendly sense - the shot needs more sense of drama - more progression of light and shade, more three-dimensionality, than it has.
I also think your sense of composition here is slightly askew - in that this is a very straightforward depiction of the flower. A good look through all the winning shots shows that there is a much more intense focus on shadow work, on a sense of landscape in the shots that have scored well than you have achieved here. Imagine, if you had focussed more clearly on the centre of the flower, and used the outer petals to frame that area, you would have the recognisable subject all the same, but with more immediate photographic impact.
All of which presumes you are aiming simply to score well here, rather than submitting for any other reason.
Outside of dpc-world, there is a feeling of odd light that I like very much in the centre of the flower: the very centre of the stamens seems to glow, and gives the impression of the flower emerging from the light of that area. However, even in this sense, I think you still need a greater sense of light and shade in the image. Along the stems of the petals there doesn't seem to be much graduation between what should have been light areas and should have been dark ones - again, I suspect that this is as much a function of the auto-thing as of your capture of the image. Also, the inclusion of the greenery works against this - making more of the fact that it is simply a flower, rather than of the extraordinary elements at it's centre - and puts the shot into a different category - one that is more of simple illustration. Whilst there is nothing wrong with that, it never seems to do that well here.
It could perhaps have been worked into something that would have scored better, but as it stands, i think if fully deserving of it's 'average' score.
Ed
Photographer found comment helpful.
