C&C

[Rosh]

would appreciate any comments on how to improve. thanks

 

[tirediron]

A couple of issues with this image: One is exposure. You have the stone slightly over-exposed, but in the background, large areas of deep shadow which are very distracting. The use of fill-light/reflectors would have reduced the disparity between the extremes and made for a more pleasing image. Second is the background. While softly focused, it's not quite soft enough, and there's enough detail still discernable to make it very distracting as well. As there's no EXIF data appended to the image, I don't know what your aperture was, but try shooting with either a larger aperture or a longer focal length from a greater distance to achieve a softer, more pleasing and less distracting background.