New pictures

I said I would post some new pictures and here they are....."not more flower shots" i hear you cry..

I like the idea of the black background. This concentrates our eye on the flower. Your exposure and colour is also good.

A few minor points might help. Flowers for photography should be good specimens, and certainly straggly leaves and insects could be removed. I also wonder why you have felt constrained to the shape of the full frame for the images. A crop to a squarer format would remove some excess black and leave the subject sitting more comfortably in the frame.

Flower photography is certainly challenging to technique but the results can be very satisfying.

John

Thanks for your comments. I had never thought about making the frame square...I will give that a go next time. These were shots from the garden, grabbed between rain showers. I will have a go next time at giving the flowers a "make-over" before their model shoot, haha !!!

You are correct...all the bugs and bits of soil do rather detract from the image.

Thanks for looking.

I really like the rose! That is lovely. What did you use as a background and how did you hold it is place?

Gwyn

I wish I could say had that much patience to set the shot up! The picture is straight from the garden hand held. I use Photoshop elements to cut the flower out and place it on a black background.

Cheating i guess ?

The rose shot is really great. Very delicate and the drops add appeal. I'm with John on the cropping, it sometimes helps also to not have the flower in the center of the picture. The black background does help, but in shot #3 it leaves the flower awkwardly suspended in thin air.
Keep up the good work,
Prieni

I think those shots look superb, and as has been said before, even better with a bit of cropping.

I would say, especially in the 3rd, you need to look for option in photoshop 'defringe layer'/'feather' or something to that effect. The edges of the stem look unrealistically jagged...

Is it just me or does anyone else think theres a bit too much rain on the rose, IMHO I think it distracts too much from the flower? also the nearest petals are slightly out of focus.

Sorry to burst your bubble Peter, but I would have prefered either all of the flower in focus or a bit more "creative" out of focus areas.

Very nice shot though, exposure is fine, composition is fine, the manipulation is fine, its just a pity the weather wasn't

Frame it and hang it on the wall and everyone will think its wonderfull , just dont enter it into any competitions

No need to apologise impotentspider... criticism is what i was after.

I shall hone my technique and be back.

Thanks to all for looking