The Star

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Made this image while waiting for a bus. These beautiful flowers on the road side drew my attention.

The star pattern formed by the inner parts of the flower interested me while I was looking for compositions through the view finder. I first wanted the stigma to be in focus & the rest totally OOF. However, while experimenting I also realized that giving some sort of shape to the BG star enhanced the comp (to my tastes). With couple of tries (varying the aperture), I came up with this image which I found to be interesting DOF - as in - showing the star form but not too much detail so as to distract from the main stigma.
Does this work for you...?



And any thoughts, opinion about the tiny petals edges towards the left of the frame...
Does it distract? I opted not to clone it thinking that it provides some kind of balance to the comp.

Techs:
Nikon D300, Nikkor 105mm VR micro, hand-held
f/6.3, 1/640, ISO200

Critiques/views welcome...

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Kaushik,
I like the composition and the selective focus with the very narrow depth of field...this has a good soft delicate feel to it...for my personal taste, I would eliminate the two petal on the left side of the frame because it throws the compositional balance off, and it takes away from the main subject...:cool:

[denise ippolito]

Kaushik, I like the petals on the edge to me it balances the composition. Your colors are beautiful and I love the soft focus of the star with the main stigma being sharp.

[Julie Kenward]

I'm going with Gus on this one...I love the soft focus but the petals on just one side don't tell a story or add anything major to the image. If they showed up all the way around I'd say definitely leave them in...but as is I think it would be stronger without them.

In case you don't know those are daffodils you're looking at. :)

[Mike Moats]

Hey Kaushik, cool looking abstract, great vibrant color, I can go either way on the petals.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Thank you all for the feedback.

I'm going with Gus on this one...I love the soft focus but the petals on just one side don't tell a story or add anything major to the image. If they showed up all the way around I'd say definitely leave them in...but as is I think it would be stronger without them.

In case you don't know those are daffodils you're looking at. :)

Gus and Jules, I shall try out a version without the petals on the left and post it once am back home from work. Also thanks Jules, I indeed did'nt know that I was photographing daffodils.