Common Blue damselfly

[Jonathan Ashton]

Canon 1D MK111 Canon 180mm macro ISO 800 1/200 sec f11
I took this shot in 2008 and lost all my raw files from one particular outing - luckily my pal saved a duplicate set on his PC!!
I deliberately left the background as it because this is how it was. Maybe I should have cropped a little from the left?
All C & C welcome.

[Mitch Haimov]

Fantastic! Everything that should be sharp is. I also like that the angled composition avoids the corners. And, of course, the excellent subject. No cropping from the left needed! Had the background been further away--and therefore more oof--would have been nice, but I wouldn't try to change that in Photoshop. And blurring it with a larger aperture would have risked loss of sharpness where you need it. An excellent piece of work.

[Anita Bower]

I'm going to leave most of the comments to the insect photographers on this forum.

You got a nicely blurred bg and the damselfly is in a nice position. The diagonal composition is very nice. Adding a curves or contrast adjustment might help the insect stand out more from the bg. I'm partial to tightly cropped images, so i would suggest some cropping left and top--but this is a personal preference. You might clone out the dark spot on the leaf.

Hope to see more!

[Ken Childs]

Hi Jon, that's good news that your photos were saved! Great clarity and lighting on this and the angle of the damsel couldn't be better. I agree with Anita about cropping from the left and maybe a small amount from the top.....I think this would look more balanced with the eyes closer to a ROT position. The light stripe behind the wings is a bit problematic but it's not a deal breaker.....I would try to at least tone down the bright area near the top of this stripe. Overall this is very well done and with a few minor tweaks it should look even better! :5

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jonathan. Overall, this is very nicely done! Excellent sharpness throughout, nice even light, and a pleasing diagonal comp. The comp works for me, as presented, but cropping some from the left would be an effective alternative. While the background is "how it was," I agree with Ken that toning down the light area above the wings wound make the image stronger. If this was mine, I would remove the dark spot on the leaf as it is drawing my eye away from the damselfly. You might also try increasing the contrast a bit to give the damselfly a little more pop. These are just some small tweaks that I think will take this already strong image to the next level. :)

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thank you everyone, much appreciated.