Not much to say about this one. Showing the contrast between a flower at the peak of its bloom and another at the end of its life. Shot at a local park, no extra lights or anything. PP consisted of contrast, curves, and sharpening.
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Place: 246 out of 396 Avg (all users): 5.1012 Avg (commenters): 5.0000 Avg (participants): 4.7792 Avg (non-participants): 5.3736 Views since voting: 665 Views during voting: 215 Votes: 168 Comments: 4 Favorites: 1 (view)
I think this is one of your best shots. The bokeh is great. Attention ois on the flower in the front and with the one in the background you add interest. Awesome job.
First, lets start out with how this image fits in relation to the challenge and the DPC game. Most voters for this challenge were expecting an image with high photographic contrast. Eight of the top ten images in this challenge were black and white or near black and white. Since your subject has a metaphorical contrast, you start off fighting an uphill battle.
Now lets look at how well you conveyed your metaphorical contrast to the voters. You have an older looking white flower that is centered in the image with pretty good focus and lots of detail. Contrasting that, you have a fresher looking yellow flower in the background that is partially cropped off and definitely not in focus. In fact, the focus on the yellow flower doesn't really provide the voter enough detail to determine if it truly is a "young" flower or a middle aged flower on its last legs, especially in the two or three seconds the typical voter will look at the image. The composition of this image doesn't help support your metaphor either, as the yellow flower looks more like background clutter than as a contrasting element to the white flower. For these two flowers to convey the age contrast suggested by your title, they need to have equal prominence in the photo, both in placement and focus. As is, without the title, I would never be able to tell that this image was contrasting an old flower to a new flower. There was a recent posting in the forums that suggested if a four year-old cannot easily tell the connection between your image and the challenge description, then you probably won't score well.
Let me finish with a few comments about what I really like about the image. First, the post processing of this image is really well done. The white flower has lots of detail and more important, texture. It would have been very easy to over sharpen this image to the point where that texture would have been lost in the detail. I also like the softness of the background. It really compliments the texture of the flower. If the yellow flower weren't there, this image would work very well with the white flower being centered and a square crop.
Watch your composition and make sure it supports the message you are trying to convey. And always, crop out those areas that don't support your message. The voters will forgive a few technical flaws if the composition and relationship to the challenge are strong.
Okay. Here's another comment. Like Smurfguy said, depth of field was important here. When taking a shot like this, I really like to bracket a whole bunch, try 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 7.1, etc. and see just which focussing really tells the story you are trying to get across. Obviously, a tripod helps here, but even without, it will be noticeable.
The other bit of advice I have for this one is to crop down to what's interesting. Anything to the right of the white thingee is not telling your story (IMO, of course) so look at your image without that section and see if it pops into story-telling mode quicker.
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