Solo Reshoot
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by surfdabbler:
Yes, I agree this is better than the first. The focus on the flowers is much better. For some comments for improvement, if you have access to some editing software, you could adjust the colour balance, as it looks a little off. I would try bumping the reds a little (but my first inclination is not always right - I find I have to play a bit to get it right. You might get a better result straight out of the camera by setting manual white balance to the shade setting, but I find it very tricky to get the balance right out of the camera, so I do a lot of adjusting afterwards.

Also, the sky has come out totally overexposed. This can be fixed at shooting time with eigther a grad ND filter (might be tricky to set for this image), or a complicated multi-flash setup, which can produce amazing results, but takes a lot of equipment and know-how to get a good result. The best fix here is probably to crop more of the sky out. It doesn't add much to the composition, so I'd say chop it halfway between the top of the shot and your head, and maybe a little off the left too.

Hopefully this helps a little. There's some good emotion in this shot, and I think it's lovely that you put flowers on your ancestors grave. And I don't see anything wrong with the shirt. :)

Solo Reshoot
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by Beautiful-Joe:
I don't really know why I sat in the road.
See.. The shot in the first place wasn't really planned. I have a habit of setting daisies on my great grandmother's gravemarker daily.. Even though I didn't even know the woman all that well. o_o

I had the flowers and I was like.. "I want a picture of these." so I set them on the path and started getting ideas.

I probably should have thought it out more..

I didn't really think about a location.. I sort of sat down right where I was.. xDD

PS: What's wrong with my flannel shirt? It's sweet..

Or maybe that's the reason I couldn't get anyone to go to the spring dance with me. =x

Solo Reshoot
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by aliqui:
I think this is much better than the other. I think the flowers in focus and you out of focus works better. Your pose on this one is better too. More emotion comes through than on the first shot. Your first shot looked more snap-shotty, where as this one looks more intentional. I'm not digging the flannel shirt though, heh.

One question.. why did you shoot it at that location? It strikes me as odd to be in anguish and to plop down in a park/cemetary road. I can see maybe along the road with the road in the shot, but in the road seems odd.

Solo Again
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by johnmcboston:
Having the flower in focus as well would have helped me a bit. (Now I'm curious how it would look with the flower in focus but the person a out of the DoF...)

Solo Again
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by veganmegan23:
the sunflower and the child are competing for my focu, sunflower seems blurry and overpowering

Solo Again
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by Sliekas_Satanistas:
I want focus on flower.

Solo Again
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by DistantColours:
I think the flower should have been in focus instead.

Solo Again
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by h2:
too much of a cliché, had preferred the flower in focus and the person not

Pure Fuzz
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by darnok:
I think the main reason you got nailed is that this image doesn't meet the challenge, it doesn't say pure to me. People also tend to like their macros to be razor sharp. Instead of driving up the ISO you could try opening the aperture all the way (if possible, I'm not familiar with your camera). ISO 1600 seems a bit overkill if you were shooting in good sunlight (again I don't know the conditions this was taken in), I'm thinking the camera decided to close the aperture rather than increase the shutter speed. You could maybe try to use 'sports mode', that might favour higher shutter speeds. The burnt highlights in the background are also not helping this image, next time try a higher angle to get the sky out of the frame. Overall a good macro capture.

Pure Fuzz
by Beautiful-Joe

Comment by BeeLow:
Hi Joe! Good details on here, but could be a bit sharper. Beautiful insect!