Cotton Thistle

Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction

Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.

Questions to guide your feedback

Enough detail?
Background bokeh unobtrusive?

Other Information

Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.

Image Description

The dried bloom of a thistle with the flower reduced to cotton. Onopordum acanthium (Cotton thistle, Scotch thistle), is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae.

Technical Details

Canon EOS 10D; Canon EF 100mm macro; f;9.5 @ 1/90 sec, -1 EV, ISO 100; Gitzo tripod; RRS BH 55, Canon RS-80N3 remote switch.

Specific Feedback

Whatever you wish.

The image looks fine to me, Bob. I like the depth of field and the background didn’t even register, so that’s not an issue. Really neat contrast between the cottony inside and the dried sepals .

Nicely composed, interesting textures, and wonderful blurred background. What if you brightened the white fuzzy center a little?

Thank you @Dennis_Plank and @Chris_Baird for your kind remarks. I encountered this specimen while exploring Water Canyon/Tropic Ditch in Bryce Canyon NP. This pod is quite small, maybe the size of my thumbnail. I had no idea what it was at the time, but I chose to identify it by what I saw Thistle Cotton. The official name has the words transposed.
I brightened the cotton as much as I could. Because there is little contrast in the cotton, additional brightening rendered it amorphous. Feel free to try it yourself.

Bob: A really nice find and a fine capture. The fine fibers are rendered perfectly and I like how you’ve made a good image from somewhat nondescript subject matter. Well done. >=))>