Dutch Iris

[Julie Kenward]

Grabbed up a bouquet of dutch iris at the grocery store this week and broke out the macro lens. Man, it felt good to be photographing flowers again!

Canon 40D, EF 100mm f/2.8
f4 @ 1/30th, ISO 400
Manual mode, handheld, fill flash and natural window light
Contrast boost and cleaned up a few small flaws in pp.

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks, Julie, for sharing this very ethereal, almost psychedelic image. But while I like it as-is, I probably would have placed the focus point somewhat differently.

I find the softer parts of the image to be more interesting. Yet my eye is inexorably drawn between the softer parts that I especially like, and the strong, sharp vertical element on the left. IMO, the image arguably would have been better if the focus point had instead been placed where the yellow element merges with the blue parts below. The effect of doing that would have been to relegate the leftmost vertical element to a somewhat less dominant position in the image, and I think that might have been a little bit better. :S3:

An alternative possibility using your existing file would be to simply eliminate the leftmost element by cropping. Then everything would be soft, but that would be fine with me.

Norm

[Chris Korman]

Very nice simple and abstract image. I wonder if you might also have another one with something a little bit further from the edge in focus, as the eye tends to get drawn to the edge.

[Brendan Dozier]

Like the rich color, soft curves, and simplicity of this abstract image, Jules. Agree with trying different focal points or going totally soft with it. Nicely done, look forward to seeing more!

[Julie Kenward]

Thanks everyone for the comments. I've got some others I'll be posting.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jules. The intense blues and yellows of this flower are striking. Interesting comments above. For me, I'm having a bit of difficulty deciding what the center of interest is in the image. My eye keeps bouncing back and forth between the sharp petal on the left and the curving yellow line in the center - and I think this is sort of what the others are saying. The image might be stronger if you cropped the sharp petal off the left, as Norm suggested, leaving the soft, abstract areas - with your eye then going right to the curving yellow line. :S3:

[Ken Childs]

Hey Jules, yes it's nice to have flowers again although I haven't felt well enough to work with the Daffodils that opened up here a few days ago.....at least I feel better just knowing they are there. :S3:

The colors are fantastic....I love that yellow/blue combo! Like others have suggested, I'm having a hard time deciding where my attention should be going so maybe removing that sharp petal on the left would help.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jules,
Focus point mentioned already.....as you know I have a tough time on the shallow DOF ones but I stil have a bit to go before spring comes here to NJ.......I see a few blooms emerging from the ground.