More flowers

[Cedarapple]

I can't make my mind up about these pictures.
Will someone help, by telling me if they are any good or not.

This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago. After taking several shots, I realised that the camera was set to 800 ISO, so I changed it and took loads more, but for some reason they got lost somewhere between the memory card and the computer.

I am sure that the lost pictures were far better! :shrug:

But isn't that always the case with "the one that got away?"

This is a penstemon in my garden. Again I'm not sure if this works or not, and would appreciate any comments and advice.

Thanks for looking

Phil

 

[moomike]

The images themselves are very nicely taken, the composition in the 1st is very nice, leading the eye from the bottom left to the top right through the image (although I'd crop off a slight bit from the right hand side as there are no poppies there) but the red is a bit overboard for me - my 70-200 gives reds like that every time & I always have to lower the saturation slightly because it overpowers everything else & tends to lose detail IMHO.
The 2nd is a bit too oversaturated too & I'm not keen on the vignetting border - could you try framing the penstemon with other flowers/grass/branches, etc, just something a bit more natural?

I think you're definitely on the right track - your compositions are looking quite unusual & interesting & I think you should rely more on the strength of your images rather than the processing IMO

 

[Cedarapple]

Thanks for taking the time to comment and advise, Moomike. I think I agree with your comments about the saturation. The colours have been unaltered in processing, and I hadn't really considered desaturating, but will give it a try.

I think I also agree about the vignetting. I haven't tried this before, and thought it might concentrate the focus on the flower rather than the messy background. However, I have to agree that it does look rather ****.

You wrote:
"the composition in the 1st is very nice, leading the eye from the bottom left to the top right through the image (although I'd crop off a slight bit from the right hand side as there are no poppies there)"

Have you got your left and right mixed up, or has the image flipped , because on the picture I can see the poppies are concentrated on the right side of the image?
Or have I misunderstood this?

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

 

[moomike]

No, my L & R that I have written on the backs of my hands are still in place (I checked)

I just meant that there is a bit of empty seeming space at the right-hand side of the image (not big deal but I have cropped your image to show you what I meant - not actually sure it looks better now I've tried it but I'll leave that up to you )
The poppies are indeed concentrated on the right hand side of the image but begin the curve upwards in the bottom left - very intelligent composition if you meant to take the photo that way & a very lucky mistake if not - I do really like this image

Here is what I meant:

 

[Cedarapple]

Yes. I see what you mean.
Please excuse me for being dim.
I think your crop is an improvement. Thanks for demonstrating this.

 

[Boon]

i think these two are good, would like to have seen the second one (penstemon) with a little less saturation though.