Cone flowers (?)

[Jonathan Ashton]

Handheld Canon 7D Canon 100-400L IS @ 300mm ISO 200 !/320 sec f5.6

Hmm.. more of a work in progress..... I think!! I like vision and imagination, but I don't think this shot has it! - let me have it both barrels!!

[Ian Cassell]

Beautiful! They remind me of whirling dirvishes. You might consider cropping a bit off the left (at about the level of the "J" in your watermark) and then the blurred flowers in the left FG will draw your eye to the main focused flowers.

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Interesting! Agree about crop left and maybe a tiny bit of bottom. I like the blur and color.

[Jay Sheinfield]

Nice concept. Good colors an BG. Pyramid-style. I'm not keen on the hanging in-focus cone flowers where the stems are cut off and the flowers appear to float. You may want to consider submitting this to the OOB forum and get their take................I'd like to see this without the blur.

[Julie Kenward]

Jonathan, I do like the top three flowers - they are crisp and detailed and nicely exposed - especially considering they are the two "evil" colors - yellow and red! I don't much care for the OOF flowers as they are too OOF for my tastes but do like the pyramid effect you've used here. I'd try it again but do more of a vertical crop - just enough to fill the bottom edge with flowers and work your way up the pyramid.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jonathan,
I like the concept......execution......not so much......and it's not for the resons mentioned above! I'm not a huge fan of overlapping parts....unless it loos that they work that way.......those top 3 blooms are a great example....except for the one behind the right bloom. Getting higher or moving some for more seperation......makes me think you were onto something! Just look for different angles....and with your vision I am sure you will make it work!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks for your C&C, you have given me something to consider, I will bare it in mind for my next "creative" attempt.

[Anita Bower]

The colors are marvelous. Good focus on the back flowers. I have found that blurring things in the foreground does not work as well as blurring things in the BG. Was this a blur resulting from your f stop? Or, did you do it in pp?

[Jonathan Ashton]

The colors are marvelous. Good focus on the back flowers. I have found that blurring things in the foreground does not work as well as blurring things in the BG. Was this a blur resulting from your f stop? Or, did you do it in pp?
Another good point I will bare in mind - thanks Anita. The blurr was motion blur - I just did a quick mask of the sharp ones and sharpened them, then I lassoed the others and applied motion blur.

[Anita Bower]

Another good point I will bare in mind - thanks Anita. The blurr was motion blur - I just did a quick mask of the sharp ones and sharpened them, then I lassoed the others and applied motion blur.
Thanks for explaining your post processing. It is always helpful to have that info. I hope you continue to play around with pp techniques, as it is a lot of fun and can produce wonderful images.