The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic + Technical
About This Image
I continue to see praying mantis in our garden. I think an egg sack may have been laid in our scarlet honeysuckle plant. I saw one a couple of days ago eating a hummingbird moth caterpillar but my photos were rotten given all the stems, angle, etc. This one cooperated rather well I think striking a nice pose on a fairly unobstructed stem.
Feedback Requested
What do you think of the pose, overall sharpness? I think the flash + diffuser worked pretty well this time. Any thoughts?
I think everything worked here! The lighting is gorgeous and soft, the subject has lovely detail and is so nicely posed and the BG wonderful!
I see a small detail here that I often try to cope with. It is partly exaggerated by the JPEG posterization of the BG, but is likely visible in the rasterized file (PS or TIFF). The darker areas of the BG feel a little too high in contrast, which is likely contributing to the posterization. It could primarily be color contrast and it could be interesting to desaturate reds a bit in the raw file, or lighten them a tad. But a small point for a very nice portrait!
Allen: At least this one doesn’t look like he’s sizing you up for a snack. Really good plane of focus management and the flash looks better than some of your previous efforts. Nicely done. >=))>
