Equipment: An all-manual Praktika, a zoomflash; Film: Kodak Gold 400

I'm here to learn something, so please be straight forward!

-- G. Avasi (avasig@hotmail.com), August 17, 1998

Answers

It's iteresting, but I find the four flowers too cluttered and there is no real focus to the photo as no sigle flower provides a subject..There is so much detail in these flowers that a single flower would have been a great shot. How did you get the background so dark? Is the flash the sole source of light? The flowers almost seem to be pasted on a black background.

-- Adam Liedloff (a.liedloff@qut.edu.au), August 17, 1998.

Thank you! My oppinion is that the 4th flower at the background is really not needed. If the three flowers could be captured forming a triangle, it would be much better.

I did not paste them on a background. There is a method I learnt from a great insect photographer (my dad). In my country, Hungary, we can hardly get fancy stuff, e.g. latest circle-flash. I used an extension tube, and I fixed a flash holder arm on its side, which gives an option to provide sidelight (and a high DOF at f16 or f22). As a result, the background is out of the flashlight.

-- G. Avasi (avasig@hotmail.com), August 17, 1998.

Yes, a single flower would bring your eye and attention to the details more easily.

But I like the foursome simply because it feels more like what you see in the wild --- flowers coming at you because they're so prolific and random: "Here we are!" Like a parade strutting before you.

Nice composition, and I love the pink-against-black. I would much prefer to have this profusion of flowers than the more common solo shot.

-- Patricia Lee (patricia.s.lee@lmco.com), August 18, 1998.

It's somewhat interesting, but I'd get rid of the fourth flower in the background to simplify the composition, and because odd numbers of things almost always work better than even numbers.

-- Mark Ciccarello (mark@ciccarello.com), August 18, 1998.

I actually like the fourth flower in the background, and while Mark is right that 3 is almost always a better composition than 4, I find the fourth (partial) flower in the background really adds to it. the lighing looks overly harsh too me with burned out highlights, but that may be the scan.

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), August 27, 1998.