Tree of life

Image Description

These flowers were in my neighbor’s garden. What first drew me to this scene were the tinges of pink around the edges. Then it looked like there was a tree of life growing inside the flower.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.

  • Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.

  • Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.

  • Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

I wanted to use this opportunity to ask about flowers in the context of the NLPA. If I’m remembering correctly, there were no pictures that were specifically of flowers in Volume 1 of the book (although there was one beautiful field of poppies, if I recall). And none of my flower images even made it out of the pre-judging this last year. I’m not saying they should have! I am just wondering if there is a place for flowers, and I should try to improve, or if this competition is not really a good fit for flower photography.

For instance, is this shot just too boring? Is there anything I could do to improve it? Thank you so much for any feedback!

I think ‘flower portraits’ are close to the edge of what most people would class as a landscape photograph. They almost sit in their own genre, especially where they are completely independent of the surrounding landscape. Photographs that integrate flowers into the surrounding landscape tend to do better and I think your photo here sits almost on the edge.

We’ve put through images of trillium and iris before now and although they haven’t been selected, they did OK with the judges. They relied more on the composition and arrangement than being a photograph of a single flower or plant though.

Your photograph uses a lovely colour contrast between the green and the lilac background and shows the structure of the plant well. I imagine it would do pretty well in the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition.

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Amy, I am not familiar with this flower, but I do like the “tree” growing in the center. Very interesting plant. I am not able to comment on the competition side for your questions as I haven’t been submitting to any of those competitions. We do have a Flora category here on NPN, but this fits well in Macro as well. I could see calming the light a little bit on the outer petals and leaves. I’m sorry it has taken me awhile to view and comment, but I have been out of town.

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Hi Amy,

What a striking little tree you saw in this scene. Now I’ve seen it I can’t not see it. The edges in pink are so interesting as well. No idea what it is, but I like it. So I couldn’t help myself and so did some tinkering in Photoshop. You’ve asked how things might “improve” it, so this is subjective -

And the layer stack in Photoshop looks like this -

You didn’t say if you use Ps, so if this doesn’t make sense I’m happy to run it down for you.

Cheers!

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Hi Tim, thank you for this feedback! I agree that they are on the edge as things are currently classified, and it’s helpful to hear what might put it on one side or the other. And thank you for mentioning the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition–I had never heard of it. Thanks again!

Hi Kristen,

Thank you for taking the time to play with my image a bit! I’m glad you see the “tree” as well! I do use Ps, but there were a couple of new things in there I’ll have to play with. :slight_smile: I think your overall edit is a little stronger than I prefer for this image, but there are definitely some parts that I might incorporate! I think both you and Shirley were right that the outer petals and leaves were too bright and need calming down. It’s so nice to see what others would do with an image, so I really appreciate you taking the time to tinker with it and show me your perspective!

And I’m not 100% sure what it is, but it has to be some type of small Lenten rose.

No problem, Amy. Your image, your rules. I feel the same way for most of mine, but it’s the back and forth and stirring of ideas that helps me the most. Either to see my photo differently or to more finely craft it in keeping with what I intend. All part of the fun.