Mullein

[Beth Goffe]

As far as I know, I haven't seen mullein plants in Central Park and the only ones I'd seen before last weekend were during the winter so they were all dried out. This is the first flowering version I have encountered. Does the placement in the frame work?

40D, 100-400L, 1/3200s, f/5.6, 250mm, EC -2/3, ISO 640

http://www.pbase.com/bgoffe/image/115493207/original.jpg

[Markus Jais]

A simple and beautiful image. Good BG and nice light.
I just photographed a similar flower here in Bavaria a few days ago. I played with the placements in the frame. I liked both left and central placements, only right placements don't work that well in this situation (IMHO).
I think the central placement here works quite well.

Markus

[Julie Kenward]

I think when you have something this stick straight centered is okay, especially since you kept the sides close. You did an excellent job of DOF on this - I would check some of the whites on the flowers, though as they look almost blown (?).

I would love to see the same image as a macro with just the top 1/3 or middle 1/3 in the entire image. There's so much detail in this type of plant that I would think it would lend itself well to an upclose orientation...especially with the insects crawling all over it.

[Fabs Forns]

Centered composition tend to work better in vertical frames, as is the case here. It works for me!

[Randy Stout]

Beth:

I agree with Jules about the concept of really moving in closer on this one, which would allow you to show more detail of the flower and insects. The red channel is pretty hot here so you are losing some detail in the yellows.

Nice discovery.

Randy

[Alfred Forns]

Center is fine Beth and could even take a tad of the sides !!

Just right saturation on the yellows and complementing bg !!! Excellent !!!

[Beth Goffe]

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions, everybody! Julie, I really like your suggestion of making it a macro. I played a little with the original and it looks pretty cool. I'll try to get a version up hopefully tomorrow.

Regarding the yellow, the histogram in ACR does not show any clipping but when I revisit the image, I'll use the Recover slider if there are any highlighted pixels I may have missed on the first go-round.

[Anita Bower]

Nicely done! I agree with the positive comments above. The only drawback of this image is that the flowers are a bit past their prime.