Neat composition, or a mess? [British flowers]

luke_church

Hi All,

I fear I may be out of my depth in the current company, but, hey, why restrict makng a fool of myself in public to only a single forum?!?
So, out I was taking some photos of some flowers for someone (yes, dirty trouser knees, bring it on Sherlock Holmes:-))

And I saw this composition:


Now, I thought at the time it was kind of neat, when I post processed it I became less sure. I showed it to someone else, and they said it was a mess, a 3rd person loved it... The question is, what do you think?

Compared to a more 'conventional' approach:



And a further out one...



So guys, it's your call, what do you think?

Any comments, suggestions, questions or insults are always welcomed.

All the best,

Luke

Andy

good to see some pics from you, luke

number one is somewhat confusing, it seems to be neither "here nor there."

number two is better - i'd mover the central mass of the flower further to camera left, looking for a more traditional rule of thirds. still, number two doesn't wow me either.

number three is the closest, but the empty space upper left detracts to me, rather than adds. number three looks like a candidate for a crop, give it a try?

the colors and exposures are lovely, good job there.

luke_church

Hey Andy,
Thanks for your comments : Nice to have someone who talks about the photos rather than replies that I could improve it by spend $n where n > (my budget)

I'm now inching back towards being able to process photos again, I've got a back-log of a few thousand since August...

So I took your advice and had a session with the crop tool. Unfortunately I'm stuck with an aspect ratio of 1.5 so I'm a little limited, but here's what I produced:

Conservative crop, kept the whole flower mass:


Or a more serious crop, taking it nearer to the third line:


Do you find these more appealing? I guess I should have aimed closer to the third line when I was taking the photo, it's just so hard to resist centring it in the frame... Slaps wrist (or then again, maybe not )...

Thanks for looking,

Luke

andy wrote:

good to see some pics from you, luke

number one is somewhat confusing, it seems to be neither "here nor there."

number two is better - i'd mover the central mass of the flower further to camera left, looking for a more traditional rule of thirds. still, number two doesn't wow me either.

number three is the closest, but the empty space upper left detracts to me, rather than adds. number three looks like a candidate for a crop, give it a try?

the colors and exposures are lovely, good job there.

Jerry Curtis

I really like this composition, Luke. It's close enough to a "thirds" composition and the other parts of flowers fill in the rest of the frame without being distracting. I really like the lighting and the great shadowing.

Very lovely image all around.

luke_church

Jerry Curtis wrote:

I really like this composition, Luke. It's close enough to a "thirds" composition and the other parts of flowers fill in the rest of the frame without being distracting. I really like the lighting and the great shadowing.
..snip..
Very lovely image all around.

Wow, thanks Jerry.

Cheers,

Luke

PS. I looked at your gallery, some of your squirrel photos are pretty cool :-)