Call Me Yellowby
hdogg4uComment by ubique: Greetings, Hiral, from the world famous Critique Club!
Every time I press that button to get another image to critique, I pray that it won't be a flower. The only thing I like less than a photo of a flower is two photos of flowers. So you see I am uniquely qualified to judge your image! So let's go ...
Well, the composition is pretty good. Rather than simply cramming a small subject way over in a corner, you have found a way to have the subject dominate the frame but still satisfy the off-centre requirement. That's very well thought out - much better than your relatively modest finishing spot in the results would suggest.
So why did you finish lower than your good compositional idea deserved?
First reason would be focus. This kind of photograph really demands precision in focus, depth-of-field and exposure. That's really all the image can be about; the only interest it can have, unless the viewer is a flower nut. So it's got to be executed perfectly, and this isn't. The focus is soft over most of the flower, and the impression is one of indecision. Uncertainty. You haven't mentioned what lens you used, but at F11 I'd have expected that reasonable sharpness should have been possible over the whole flower, as long as the focus was even close to accurate. Given the long exposure, I am assuming you used a tripod, so maybe the softness is partly due to some miniscule movement of the flower? After all, 1.3 secs is a long time - nearly long enough for the poor flower to start to wilt!
Another issue was probably the dead-looking leaf peeling back from the stem. It is an unattractive little sucker, and seems to steal attention away from the real star; the bloom. And along the same lines, the commenter who mentioned the background may have a point - the light background band does seem to direct our attention to the wrong part of the subject.
So, my conclusion is that this was a good idea and a fine composition, but your execution of the details has let you down a bit.
On a brighter note, this critique led me to your portfolio, where I found this:
What a brilliant photograph that is! Fabulous subject, terrific composition, and a very thoughtful and interesting take on that particular challenge topic. And to top it off, the technical execution of the B&W was excellent as well. It's a photograph of which anyone at DPC could be proud. So I hope my promotion of it here will make up a little for my less enthusiastic reception of the flower image.
Cheers,
Paul
Photographer found comment helpful.
