Hello Barbara:
Welcome to NPN. Glad to see your posting an image on the site for input.
Looks like you enjoy photographing flowers. Wonderful subjects.
To get even more robust feedback, it is helpful to share information about the camera settings used for an image. Things like shutter speed, aperture, ISO and maybe even lens info can all be helpful.
I like where you were headed with the image. I think the biggest distraction in the image is the very bright yellows. I find digital cameras tend to struggle a bit with yellows that are beginning to be overexposed. Details are lost quickly. I took your image into Photoshop and did a little work to try to tame those yellows and see what details could be brought back. Of course you’d have better results with the original RAW file. Here’s the result I came up with.
Again, Welcome.
Barbara, I too would like to welcome you to NPN. I think it is a wonderful site where we can learn from each other. I know that I have sure learned while being a member here for a couple of years. I agree with Keith, it does help if you share your camera settings. We even learn from that, just looking at other’s photos that we like and wonder how they got the shot, well, with the settings we can try what they did and maybe improve while out in the field. I think the edit that Keith provided does improve the yellows. He is right, digital cameras do have a bit of a problem with that. Anyway, I do hope to see more of your photos on here, and that you will find the site as helpful and enjoyable as I have.
Welcome again, Barbara. I like the composition here a lot. As others have noted, yellows can be a problem, particularly in sunlight, the tend to get those hot spots like you have on the main bloom here. Yellow flowers are one subject I leave for a cloudy day. It also looks as if the focus was a bit off. I suspect your autofocus locked onto one of the leaves behind the main blooms. The Autofocus systems seem to have a preference for straight lines and can often lock onto ones you don’t want. If you’re using a tripod, the live view mode and zooming in on the part of the flower you really want to have in focus works well. For most flower photography, I’ll use manual focus, so it’s right where I want it to be-not where the camera thinks it should be.
Welcome again and I look forward to seeing more of your work.
Barbara: Welcome to NPN in general and Flora I particular. You’ve gotten good advice that I can’t add much to. I do think that I would have removed the spent flowers so that you would only have prime flowers and buds. Great to have you aboard and looking forward to more. >=))>