Flowers

[rodbender]

 

[deeky]

I think these are particularly tough to shoot because of all of the glossy surfaces on the plant and the bright reflected areas are distracting for me. It looks like you used flash. Cut that and use very diffused light and I think that would help. Also set it up so you have a flatter background without the lines. You've blurred them pretty well with shallow dof, but they are still there.

 

[WesternGuy]

I would agree with deeky about these being hard to shoot with the reflective surfaces of the leaves to deal with - maybe a CPL might help - don't know, you would have to experiment with it. The general feeling in flower photography is to try and isolate one bloom or maybe one part of a flower and concentrate on that particular element, or shoot a whole "field" of the things. Check out some of the work by folks like Harold Davis and Denise Ippolito (you can find them with Google), and others (Google "flower photographer" for example). These images, particularly the second one, are a bit cluttered and the background part of the second one detracts from the main subject - the red flower in the middle. The viewer's eye wanders to the red flowers on the right and in the background. HTH.

WesternGuy