Dominic, this is a brilliant idea. The Dahlia flower indeed looks like a flame and you convey that idea exceptionally well. I am sure any viewer will get what you are trying to say instantly and that is often not easy or successful.
Technically, there is nothing wrong with individual items, but the image, although well understood does not have a strong impact on me. My issues fall into two categories.
1) Composition. The image has 3 elements organized in a stepwise diagonal where 2 objects are horizontal and and one is vertical. There is too much negative space for my comfort in the upper left and lower right corners. The idea itself is humorous and charming, but horizontals in particular and perpendicular implied lines give off a sense of staidness, formality and stuffiness that does not support the playful imagination that is the idea behind the image. It could be argued that this contrast could in itself be humorous, but for me it does not come out that way. The match is rather large compared to the cigarette and that results in Dahlia being placed near the centre of the image, further reinforcing the rigid formality of the image.
2) Collage issues. Collages can be tricky in that they work best if they are either totally unnoticeable (like say a good sky replacement) or where the collage allows you to briefly suspend disbelief even if you know that what you see can not be real (example:
View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/12120986205/in/album-72157715782080717/
). My sense is that you did not try to make the image believable and in my view it weakens the impact of the image.
a) The objects float on the solid black background.
b) There are no shadows and the illumination is not consistent. Light is coming from the bottom on Dahlia petal and diagonally from much weaker source from the top on the cigarette.
c) The cigarette comes across as small, compared to the match.
So Dominic, my sense is that your observation and your idea is great, but that you did not see the executions all that important and so there are issues. My take is that these execution issues when combined together reduce the impact of the idea significantly. It is for you to decide whether that matters to you or not.
untitled-3-2.jpg by Dominic Rodgers, on Flickr
