Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
A neighborhood walking path has a dense stand of coneflowers that come up every year. This year’s crop looks pretty good so I wandered over there a couple days ago. I found this pairing of emerging bud and mature flower and thought it worth a shot. The bees were having a good time as well so I’ll be sharing a look or two at them in the next few days. >=))>
Specific Feedback
It was moderately breezy so I could not do a stack in smaller increments. There are some weird haloing effects around the BG flower. Acceptably sharp? Haloes a 
?
Technical Details
Sony A7rIII
Sony FE 100mm f2.8 GM Macro, 2xTC
ISO 800, 1/320 @ f8, 7 image stack in Helicon focus
1 Like
Hi Bill, this is a super-colorful, dynamic photograph and a unique approach! At first glance, I thought that I might want the background more out of focus, but upon sitting with this image for a little longer, I think it may be just right. We see what the flower in front will become when it opens fully. Slightly more out of focus, a teensy bit, might also work, but certainly not more in focus.
There is something almost familial about this pairing. The young coneflower up front, petals still tucked tight like a starched collar, and the mature bloom behind looking on with the soft warm patience of someone who has been there and done that. It reads like a quiet little portrait of two generations standing in the same garden, the elder watching over the newcomer without saying a word. The longer I look, the more tender it becomes.
The mood is gentle and unhurried. That magenta halo glowing behind the emerging bud feels less like a background and more like a presence, a kind of soft chaperone keeping watch. The cool cream petals of the youngster sit beautifully against the warmer pinks behind, and the two orange hearts pulse in quiet conversation across the depth of the frame. There is a hush to the whole thing, the kind of stillness that summer mornings sometimes hand over for a few minutes before the bees clock in for their shift.
It is the sort of image that rewards the slow eye. Nothing in it shouts. It simply hums along like a small domestic moment in the floral world, full of warmth and quiet generational sweetness.
Looking forward to the bee chapter. If the flowers are setting this kind of mood, the pollinators are about to walk into a very flattering portrait session indeed.
Bill, the pairing (stacked blooms…
) looks good, nicely colorful and telling a great story. When I look at the large view, the haloing is quite modest, you have to look hard to notice it. What I do see is that the upper center of the youngster is not sharp. The edge of the oof cone also behind seems like the transition is too sharp. That has me wondering if you used the depth map (B) method. In many instances when there’s movement during the stack doing a second stack with the pyramid method (C) method gives a more uniform background.
