Tea time...

[TamiAz]

Playing around with still life... the small vase at the top of the image is bugging me. It was bugging me with nothing there as well. You can't really see the flowers, so I'm wondering if I should have just left it out. Thoughts?? Thanks.

cup of tea by TamiAz, on Flickr

 

[fjrabon]

remove the vase, move the glasses where there is a *tiny* gap between them and the edge of the phrase. The very small amount cut out is a bit disconcerting.

I think your root problem is the diagonal of the book, which points to the space where the vase is, and makes the vase important, but if the vase is gone it points to weirdly empty space, lose/lose either way. Also diagonals suggest energy, which to me seems to run counter to the assumed purpose of this otherwise peaceful image.

 

[sleist]

The great thing about still life's is that you get to set the scene exactly as you want it to be. In other words, include what you want and exclude what you don't.
It seems to me that the only object you paid any attention to here was the cup of tea (or the spoon to be honest). Everything else seems to have escaped attention based on how they were treated within the frame. Objects cropped awkwardly without any apparent consideration for importance within the composition kind of defeats the purpose of a still life IMHO. The DOF is also too shallow. On the positive side, tones and colors are very pleasing.