Monarch with Thistles

[Bob Miller]

Nikon D-300
1/1250 sec F5.6
ISO1000
200-400mm
Composition? Should the thistles in upper left corner be removed or does it add depth?

[Jay Sheinfield]

Don't you love that lens!;)

For my tastes, the OOF thistle distracts. Depending on the real-estate you have left, I would reposition the BF more toward ROT position in the frame, more on the right and less on the left, and perhaps up a hair. This would also reduce the stem length and extra stem OOF elements on the left, which also distract a bit from an otherwise good image.

Good details on the BF and nice BG. Handled the back-lighting well, IMO. Looks like you got a nice Two-fer with that cool bug at the top.

A step to the left may have been all you needed, but maybe that wasn't possible.

Jay

Cheers, Jay

[Ken Childs]

Hey Bob, IMO, the OOF thistles on the left should go. The backlit Monarch looks great! It would have been nice if the flower the Monarch was perched on was on its own but sometimes you have to take what nature gives you. I know I would have taken the shot! Jay made some good points with the crop and that Ailanthus Webworm Moth at the top is a definite bonus.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Bob,
Agree with the thistle removal on the UL and I think Jay suggestion of a crop off the left and proportionally off top would take this up another level! Nice job with the lighting and the other bug is an added bonus!

[Desmond Chan]

Should the thistles in upper left corner be removed or does it add depth?

It certainly adds depth but the question is if the final image could do without it. In this case I would choose not to have it because the thistles are not really neat and tidy looking :) and the bright rim light around them would attract too much attention to them, given that the butterfly itself is not the brightest element - which usually should be - in the photo.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful shot, I would suggest three things:
f8 - because you have plenty of shutter speed available and it would give a little more DOF (see bottom left wing) and I doubt you would have picked up too much extraneous background detail.
lose the OOF thistle
blend the dark band.
After doing this I think it would look great, possibly a slight recrop would help.

[Anita Bower]

The backlighting and colors are handled beautifully. Nice point of view. I, too, would eliminate the out of focus thistle. There are some good suggestions above you might want to try. Nice work.

[Art Kornienko]

It seems as though the thistles overpower the Monarch in this shot. I think another angle would be better with maybe just one thistle.