Rememberance Poppies

[Meysha]

I've been watching the flower photos here for a while now. I think it's amazing some of the flower pics people here take. Now I'm no flower photographer, or photographer in general (hehe) but I'd love to know how to take a really great flower shot. So here's one I took in the same cemetary as my last posted photo.

I'd love any pointers/critique you've got to share.

 

[themonko]

i'm not a flower photographer, but thought I would offer my first impressions.

Since I am a big fan of yellow and orange, I think the colors in this photo are great! The only thing that distracts me is the buildings in the background are tilting right.

Nothing to do with the photo itself but, maybe change the thin border line to a similar orange of the orange flowers?

Overall, I like it. Sorry I couldn't provide much more then that...

 

[mentos_007]

this is a very nice picture!! lovely colours!

 

[Hertz van Rental]

You do have to watch what the background is doing. It's part of the picture so try to use it. Look at the positioning of things. Yours is slightly tilted in relation to the foreground which gives the image a 'queasy' feel. Maybe a larger aperture to put the b/g more out of focus?
The flowers look a little overexposed - maybe 1/2 stop. Fiddle with the contrast/brightness in PS. It should help to punch up the colour more.
Also watch the placement of everything in frame. The yellow petal coming in down the left side is a case in point, as is the very pale one back right. They both pull the eye out of frame in different directions and lessen the impact of the centre flowers.
What is wrong with reaching into shot to move or reposition objects. There is no law that says you have to photograph things exactly as you find them.
Nice shot anyway.

 

[Meysha]

Yeah it looks slightly over exposed in my web broswer but it doesn't in PS. Strange.
And I agree with every thing you've brought up and I'll definately pay more attention to the background from now on.

I actually wanted an orange border too, but it looked really really bad.

Thanks for the comments you guys are great!

 

[leragdoll]

did you photoshop this at all? It looks super surreal.

I like it, I personally would have used a larger aperture to make the focus on the first five flowers more intense... And maybe edit out the bud in the middle of the five, I find it a wee bit distracting.
But, beautiful colors and very nice overall

 

[mad_malteaser]

Personally I love this. Hertz is definitely right when he says you have to watch your backgrounds (something I'm still not that great at doing yet), but I think your background is great here, apart from the obvious tilt that's already been mentioned. It adds a whole new dimension to the "standard" flower shot which I really like. You've just inspired me to go out and try to find something along these lines. Great capture.

 

[Meysha]

did you photoshop this at all? It looks super surreal.

I like it, I personally would have used a larger aperture to make the focus on the first five flowers more intense... And maybe edit out the bud in the middle of the five, I find it a wee bit distracting.
But, beautiful colors and very nice overall

No PS at all... that's why I'm a little bit proud of it. I'm usually a PS junkie!

I agree with the aperture comment, but I'm just using a little P&S so I'm very limited to what settings I can control. Same with the bud in the middle - I might get my PS hands onto that tonight and have a play. But the photo is so complex with lines going everywhere it's gonna be hard to do it right.