Texas Nativeby
cmrk74Comment by dsidwell: Greetings from the Critique Club!
I concur with all of the compliments below!
This image was one of my favorites for the Flora challenge. I'm glad it scored well. In this photo, my eye is directed quickly to the cactus pad on the left. Since it is in focus, it gets the attention here. And it deserves it. All that is interesting and good about this cactus is manifest in the way your photographed it.
First, the point of view from the side gives us a vew of more cacti in the background, hinting that these very interesting and engaging plants go on for some time. While a studio shot celebrates a single flower or object, this field shot brings in the whole cactus patch, with the focused pad being the supreme example.
Your focus and depth of field are superb. They further enhance the feeling first established by the point of view. They also keep the image from getting too busy.
These are beautiful and unusual plants, and you capture the textures and moods well by the use of light found here. It is soft and gloriously illumines the plants in a soft way--which is ironic because cacti are usually recognized as being harsh. But your soft lighting gives a warmth and friendliness to the objects. Oddly, the light enhances the textures of the cacti, yet they don't feel dangerous at all--only bizarre, mysterious and beautiful.
The colors are interesting, too, but I agree with your point of view that the textures and structures are even more interesting, so the limited pallette of colors is extremely appropriate in my view, for they point to the structures, lighting and textures of the plants--and in this image, these are so important.
To improve the shot, if that's possible, perhaps an unsharp mask would help "sharpen" the small details of the objects generally, but I view this photo as something I would like to have done! This is good photography, and I hope to see more of your photos in the future.
Keep up the great work!
David
Photographer found comment helpful.