I was at the wildlife refuge last evening looking to capture egrets and herons when I walked past this bee feeding on a yellow flower. I thought I would take another try at a macro/close up shot.
Nicholas, I really like this. The position of the flower, the out of focus flower in the background, all gives a nice setting for this little bee. On my monitor, it seems just a bit dark. It might help if you just bring up the brightness just a touch. Everything looks good otherwise. Nice and sharp of the bee. It pays to look around for other things that what we went out hoping to shoot! Great job! 
Hi Nicholas,
nice capture with good DOF control. I like how the bee is facing us. I agree with brightening the image a tad and I might add a little on the right.
Thanks Shirley and Allen. A little too dark is a common critique I get.
Nicholas, I too really like the sharpness and positioning of the fly (it’s actually a silphid/hover fly, note the single wings and striping on it’s back)sil and the flower. I agree that it looks a bit dark (I often get critiqued for being a bit too light…). That can easily be a monitor calibration issue. I assume that your exporting your posts as sRGB. Nice job of “looking around”.
Thanks for the ID and kind comments Mark. I have to work on restraining my dark side.
Nick: I kind of like the dark bias and what it does for the BG. I also like your DOF/POF management. Very nicely done.>=))>
Thanks Bill for the kind comments.