Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by Brad:
Greetings from the Critique Club!
"...try to use two complementary colors to compose your photograph."

This seemed to be a very subjective challenge for those submitting as well the voters. The "intended" focus of this challenge was to photograph something with 2 opposite colors in the color wheel. This can esily be checked in most photo-editing programs by simply inverting the colors and seeing what the opposite of a certain color is.

Composition:
Your composition pulls the eye in two different directions here. The stamen and it's shadow in the red portion of the Hibiscus. Difficult to do under any conditions, trying to bring two vibrant colors to the table and not have a conflict. Complementary and conflict almost go hand in hand here. This is a wonderful floral macro, regardless of it's challenge ranking.

Lighting:
The lighting here works, as the shadows add the dimension of depth to your photograph. Perhaps a bit too bright, particularly the yellows.

Post-Processing:
A couple possibilities that could have richened this up a bit.
In Photoshop, levels can be a blessing. Try this: Open the image (as I did) in Photoshop, and go Image, Adjustments, Levels, and you should see the histogram. On the bottom of the graph are three set points. Left being Black point, center being Neutral and right being White point. Take the center pointer and slide it to the left until you see the number in the center box reach approx. 0.75 - this darkened the image, but is different than just darkening. The results are better and more neutral, and gave a bit more definition to the stamens.

Suggestions/Improvements:
This image fell in the lower 25% of the challenge rankings, primarily due to the lack of really meeting the intended challenge, and am sure you realize what happened by now. Even a simple color/hue shift could have got this closer to meeting the challenge, though would not have been realistic. Keep your eyes on the forums to see discusssions so often associated with challenge descriptions.

Keep shooting!

I hope this was useful to you, and please feel free to contact me via PM if you have any questions regarding this critique or anything else relating to the site in general.

Regards,
Brad

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by KaDi:
A playful image. I like the shadow on the red petal from the stamen of the yellow flower. Needs a bit of crisping up in my opinion--maybe a bit deeper focus and a little sharpening--nothing really jumps here but the colors and, for the challenge, those could have been better chosen.

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by HVGB_photos:
What a striking photograph!

Complementary colours are pairs of colours that contrast strongly when compared to each other. Unfortunately, the yellow colour you show on the right hand side of the photo is not the complementary colour to the red on the left... you would need to have a more blue-green tone on the right to achieve the complementary pair of red/green, or a more blue-violet hue on the left to achieve the complementary pair of yellow/violet.

Regardless, this is a superb close up photograph, and I admire your skill in arranging the composition, despite the fact that it didn't meet the requirements of the challenge.

Edited to correct errors...

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by mkalandros:
Would have liked a longer depth of focus and the color choice doesn't meet the challenge. Beyond the the contrast between the two colors is nice.

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by jaxed:
Needs a little more depth of field and softer light source. Interesting composition.

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by shamrock:
Beautiful shot, my favorite of the entries. Great colors - but lots of debate as to whether they are complementary.

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by kari1:
Nice photo .. quite stunning but not quite as sharp as my eyes would like.

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by Elaine:
Focus and lighting could be better IMO. Also these are not complementary colors.

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by KarenNfld:
Does not meet the challenge

Hibiscus
by luv2photo

Comment by vtruan:
need purple or green