I'm not terribly comfortable in the macro world but here's one from yesterday of an iris in our backyard. I was experimenting with very shallow dof and selective focus. Thanks for looking and for any comments you can offer!
I like how you have all the color in the bottom third of the image to give it some weight (yea, another thing from Mike Moats' book :) ) You have very sharp details on that petal edge, nice job on that! I also like the oof purple behind that edge to set it apart from the bg.
Do you have any more images of this iris? Any close-ups of the "beard" part?
Nice composition, Grace! I also like how the weight of the image is in the lower 1/3. Have you tried bringing up the whites of the iris petal and the BG just a bit more? You might try a screen layer and then reduce the opacity to see if that gives it a lighter, airier feel.
Macros take time to learn, but the learning is fun because of the beauty we discover as we look through the viewfinder. I would lighten the darker areas a bit using curves, and brighten it up as Jules suggested by duplicating the background layer and changing the blending mode to soft light, then lowering the opacity some. I would also crop some off the top and left side, but others seem to have other opinions of the crop.
I love the softness of this, Graze, very pretty. As for the comp, I am left wanting to see more of the purple lip, although I'm aware that moving the camera down would have upset the ROT composition.
Iris detail
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