Prickly Close-Up + Repost

[Mark_Ali]

I saw this interesting and colorful little cactus while on an excursion near Sedona, AZ.

All feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

Shot handheld with a Nikon DSLR at 150mm
Exposure: 1/200s, f/8, ISO 560
Processed in Lightroom, with the usual adjustments to sharpening, exposure, etc., plus the removal of some prickly distractions along the bottom edge, some saturation to the purple coloring of the cactus, and some vignetting added.

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@markaliphotos

[Bill_Fach]

Mark: Glad you had a relatively long lens because I don’t think you would want to get too close to this prickly beauty. Nice taming of the BG and capture of the details in the cactus. Top notch. >=))>

[Mark_Ali]

Thanks Bill! Yep, I definitely didn’t get too close!

[Patricia_Brundage (Patricia Brundage, MNEC)]

Very interesting subject. My only suggestion would be to darken the background even more, especially near the cactus on the lower left.

[Michael_Lowe]

Really like the colors on the beast. I agree with @Patricia_Brundage about the background.

[Mark_Ali]

Thanks @Patricia_Brundage and @Michael_Lowe! I’ll see what I can do about that background.

[Mark_Ali]

Here’s an update, with the background darkened a lot more. I also re-cropped the original image to bring in more of the cactus.