[Sroka]

i love spring

Attached Images

     

[Ash]

Well focused captures here.
Of the 3, #2 is best, a heart-warming array of soft colours, smooth bokeh and appealing composition.
If the distracting blades of grass around the blooms were cut away, this would be a winner.

#1 is good compositionally, but suffers from distracting highlight blowing due to the harsh backlighting from the sun. The colours are as a result overcooked, but the balance is skewed too far towards the warm temperature spectrum.

#3 is sharp and well isolated, but lacks interest mainly due to the central composition and impeding elements in the background - arranging the background blooms in a geometric way may have improved this, but also cropping the image to the point of just having the detail of the bloom taking over the whole frame might make the viewer hone in on the beauty of the detail of the flower.

[CBarker]

2nd Shot works well for me also. Different from most flower shots with little colour. Black border works well too.

[Miguel]

A couple of these shots are pretty good; none grab my attention.

I prefer the first and third ones. The magenta flower Is nicely captured, especially the color. I'm of two minds whether a little fill light would have helped the facing side of the plant. The bokeh I find too distracting in form, and the color is not complementary to the flower. The specular highlights on the right are also distracting and maybe could have been cloned and blurred away.

I like the detail and color of the third shot but the weaknesses as Ash aptly stated bring it down some. Try again making the flower larger in the frame.

The second would have ended in the thresher. Too many distractions in both the foreground and background. The horizontall elements especially. And the subject matter is too weak to carry the shot. The greenblue cast I'm not a fan of either.

That all said, Springtime in Paris is legendary and I'm looking forward to more shots.

M

[CBarker]

"The second would have ended in the thresher. Too many distractions in both the foreground and background. The horizontall elements especially. And the subject matter is too weak to carry the shot. The greenblue cast I'm not a fan of either."

Makes a nice change from a bright single flower perfectly focused with a black background. I think I have seen enough of those to last a lifetime.
This picture works for me for all the reasons you it does't for you. Having said that i am a fan of Lomography...

[Miguel]

Yes I gathered the 2nd one worked for you from your initial post. That's great.

In lieu of a stated assessment standard here, such as a portfolio shot, we all have personal criteria for evaluating images. I prefer to judge an image based on what it is or what it tries to be, rather than what it is not.

I've taken a few hundred emerging iris shots like the 2nd one over the past few decades in both vertical and horizontal orientation. I've critiqued a few dozen over the years too. A few are stellar, most are not. But in season, the approach is about as common as single flowers. That's great too.

Whether one prefers closeups of single flower or a wider scope is less important to me over how well the photographer has mastered either. Not that creativity is overrated, but photography is very much iterative. And frankly I don't see that many portfolio-level single flower shots here, so to me new attempts are always welcome.

M

"The second would have ended in the thresher. Too many distractions in both the foreground and background. The horizontall elements especially. And the subject matter is too weak to carry the shot. The greenblue cast I'm not a fan of either."

Makes a nice change from a bright single flower perfectly focused with a black background. I think I have seen enough of those to last a lifetime.
This picture works for me for all the reasons you it does't for you. Having said that i am a fan of Lomography...

[CBarker]

Professionals make technical remarks amateurs just look at the picture.