Botanyby
LanndonKaneComment by eamurdock: Hi from the Critique Club!
You say you were unsatisfied with this one; it seems your instincts were correct, as you scored well below the challenge average.
Pros:
The pinks are nice; I personally like the up-close frame-filling composition.
Cons:
For me there are several:
There are significant blowouts on the petals, which always detracts. My camera will warn me when I have blown-out areas - I find it helps a lot with getting exposure right.
The stamen/pistil cluster has a kind of weird, electric feel to it that is distracting for me; I think it's perhaps just oversaturated.
Having complimented the frame-filling above, I would say that I think it would work better with the flower either less centered or more centered; I'd also have tried a square crop as the aspect ratio does nothing to help to image.
Challenge:
You acknowledge it's a bit of a shoehorn; I think many images in this challenge were so it didn't hurt as much as sometimes, but means you needed a compelling image to overcome it.
Overall I think it ended up scoring a little lower than it deserved, perhaps because of the loose connection to the challenge; however I think some more attention to technicals could have helped significantly. In general an image that is just "pretty" isn't going to grab me a lot unless the technicals are spot on.
-Evan
Photographer found comment helpful.