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
If you are acquainted with this species, don’t you wish you could smell the flower?
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
Commonly known as the bull bay or southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) is a large, striking, evergreen tree with large white, fragrant flowers up to 30 cm (12 in) in diameter. the flowers, which discolor easily if bruised, appear on the ends of thick, tough stems all over the tree. They are cup-shaped, about 8 inches across, with 6 thick petals, wider at the tip, where they are cupped. The blossoms open about 9:00 A.M. and close at night for 2 or 3 days; then all the stamens are shed and the flower reopens, turns brown, and disintegrates. The flowers appear throughout the summer and into fall. The flowers produce cone-like seedpods that contain large red seeds. When the pods open, the seeds often fall from their place and hang by silky threads.
Technical Details
Canon EOS 10D; Canon EF 100 mm macro; f4.5 @ 1/60 sec, -0.5 EV ISO100; backlit plus fill flash from the front; although the tree lived in my front yard, I chose to photograph the flower in a studio setting; Gitzo tripod; RRS BH 55; remote trigger
Specific Feedback
Enough to Identify, yet retains some mystery?
