The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
My garden, though getting close to die-down time, is still filled with an abundance of butterflies, most recently Swallowtails and Monarchs.
Specific Feedback
I think when shooting butterflies it is important to include their habitat as it is the flower which attracts them, thus becoming an integral part of the story. In this crop, the flower stems extend far out from the main stalk, giving the butterfly the opportunity to feed without fear of tearing a wing.
I guess my question is: too much plant?
oh boy is this ever nice to look at. Lovely colors. I’m good with the amount of the plant you have included because the Swallowtail is such a large insect. It also has a lot more visual weight due to its darker color. If you wanted to reduce the weight of the flower cluster you could try upping the luminosity of the purple color with the HSL or Point Color tool in Lr. The strong diagonal of the two elements works quite well and I like the smaller branch and leaf, too. Good job getting the body of the butterfly lined up pretty well for maximum sharpness. The bg looks a bit varied in bokeh sharpness so you could gently paint in blur where the edges are most crisp, but that’s not vital. Sweet late summer catch.
Very good, Chris. Not too much plant for me at all. I could see @Kris_Smith suggestion on the background, but it’s not a major issue with me. On this image, I’d be tempted to rotate it a bit clockwise to give the flower stem a bit more of a vertical angle. It may not have been that way in reality, but I think the composition would work just a bit better.
Nice portrait of the butterfly. I’d love to see the wingtips sharper but I know how difficult it is to get the entire wing sharp. For my taste, the dead blossoms are not lovely and I’d crop most of them out, but leave the first few to keep the open flowers from being cut off. I like @Dennis_Plank’s idea of a rotation. The bokeh is a little unusual – I like @Kris_Smith’s idea of softening parts of the BG.
Hope you haven’t had too much damage from the hurricane. It sounds like it carved a huge path of devastation.
Chris: Really nice capture of this beauty. I too like the small stem in the LRC and the BG. Kris’s suggestion to soften some of the bokeh is a good one but not a deal breaker for me. While more DOF to get the wingtips sharp might be OK I think that might give the BG too much prominence. Overall a fine subject superbly captured.>=))>
Chris - this is a treat. Marvelous colours in both the swallowtail and the BG, as well as the flower.
Fine as is, but I also might experiment with a tighter crop around the butterfly and purple plant.
A fine EP!
The colors in this are excellent Chris. I like the idea of a slight rotation of the stem to a more vertical look. Plant and butterfly look good, the BG is killer.
to include a slight rotation but this plant doesn’t grow vertically and to change that aspect would not favor the plant nor the Monarch. I did some adjustment brushwork on the BG. In the end, I have to go back to the original image for all the critiques (which I do appreciate, greatly) and agree with Bill Fach’s assessment which is closest to mine of how both the Monarch and the BG interact with one another.
And thanks be to whomever chose this as an Editor’s Pick. I am honored.
Lovely shot, Chris. I prefer your rework because of the sharper wingtips, though I prefer the BG in the original. You could treat the butterfly separately using a selection, but I don’t think you need to improve an EP! Well done!
