Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
I was looking for bees after the New Year at the desert museum. Not many that time of year but enough.
This is how I cropped the photo. Was not sure if the white area behind the bee was a distraction or not since it was OOF
R7 RT 100-400 1/250 f/16 ISO 1600 HH
Dean, I’m glad you found this little bee. I can imagine that they are hard to find at the beginning of the year. You really captured some nice details of him and the flower. Love that little sack on his leg. The white area behind the bee is somewhat distracting to me. Not sure if you can tone it down anymore without it looking odd though. I like the angle the bee is in, so if you had tried to position yourself in a different way to eliminate the white area, then the bee would be in a different position. Nature can be difficult to capture things perfectly. I think you did well considering the circumstances. Looks like it was harsh light too.
Dean, the details in the bee and the flower look great. Yes, the white right behind the bee is a distraction that shows off a major challenge when photographing living things…they go where they want, which often is not the most photogenic location. Some further burning-in of the white strip and the bright pink/magent bit in the lower right corner would be good.
Hi Dean,
The white blotch is a major distraction, but the rest of the image looks pretty good. Bee and flower are sharp and using some fill flash would help soften the shadows. Well done…Jim
Thanks for the feedback @Shirley_Freeman , @Mark_Seaver , @Jim_Zablotny. I deleted the raw photo my mistake because I wanted to mask the bee to remove the white area in the back. I used select and mask in Photoshop but was not getting very far with the really fine hairs.
