Large-flowered Trillium

[Paul Burgess]

Hi everyone!
Here's a shot of some Large-flowered Trillium. I'm not entirely satisfies with this picture, but I like the wide-angle look. What do you think?
http://lh3.ggpht.com/philipburg/SD1v9OSRWjI/AAAAAAAAA-s/H5wdYwnHpiQ/s800/trillium.jpg
Rebel XT | 24-105 @ 82mm | ISO 100 | 1/40s | f/8 | HH
Please be brutal!!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Paul, good idea with the grouping and good details on the front flower. Be carefull when composing that you try and avoid having one of the flowers connect with the main subject which is the center front flower. The one in the upper right corner needs a little space between the main flower. This monitor I'm on is a little off on the brightness so it looks a little overexposed, but we'll see what the other say about that. Looks like your having fun with your new lens. Keep em coming.

[Robert O'Toole]

I like the idea and the set up and comp overall so it is good. But. It think if you rasied the camera like 6 inches you might have cropped out the black section at the top. Other than the black area it looks good and I like the wide angle effect.

Mike you are right the whites look a little bright on my monitor also.

Robert

[Desmond Chan]

Hmmm...may be my monitor, the whites look about right to me. I checked with CS3 and the white of the main flower has RGB values lower than 245. Probably has to do with my personal preference. I also would suggest removing the dark upper part of the background. How about cropping off a bit of the left, too?

[Bob Allen]

I love Trillium so this image really connects with me. I agree with other 's comments: flower in upper right detracts from comp. Exposure looks correct on my monitor. There a a few funny spots on the right-side foreground flower... sensor dust? flower imperfections? No matter the cause, I would repair them.

As I tell my students, there are actually three "rules of thirds". The typical one you hear about is thirds of frame. The other two to be aware of are three objects of interest (4 is a crowd) and that the three brightest objects in the frame draw the eye. Not that one should always try for all of them in the a single photo, however, this image has all three (if we do something about the upper right flower, see below).

So, crop the top hard, down to right above the top sepal of the far-right flower. Crop left side by 1.5 cm. Maybe crop right side by about 1 cm. Try these - I think it will improve it a lot. But remember, we all have different tastes, so there is no right opinion here.