Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Our heat wave has caused a lot of plants to flower, including weeds. I saw this one in our backyard and thought it was striking.
ISO 800, 115mm, f/5.6, 1/250th.
Sorry for my delay in getting to this. Weeds don’t get a lot of love even though they’re just wildflowers that have the ability to grow almost anywhere so becoming pests. I was just out shooting some of the ones in my yard and found the bees, spiders and other insects to rely on them a lot.
I wish that full bloom was a bit more centered in the composition. I find my attention wandering too much because there is so much else in the frame and it’s so at odds with the symmetry of the flower. The B&W conversion looks good, but there is some odd banding in the background and the OOF areas look noisy and blotchy. That could be a number of things including your jpeg settings and the compression that goes with that and web posting in general.
In the small version, things look pretty good, but I don’t see much sharpness throughout which is especially sad for the open flower. Was it breezy? That’s a killer for plants like this one. Next time maybe a tighter composition and a faster shutter speed or flash will help with the focus issues.
Kristen, I think all of your comments are apt. I think I got infatuated with this composition and the infatuation passed. 
Thanks very much for commenting.
