Dogwood Bloom + Repost

Hi Tony. Curious- did you use a psh filter on this, or is this just from the sharpening filter. I like it, but would probable crop down close to the leaves and flowers. The blue sky background looks a bit funky to me. An the two big leaves close to the right could be removed. Cool though.

Thanks Jackie.
I didn't use any filters, just unsharp mask. You're right that the blue sky looks weird. I can crop it some, but I'm not good enough with PS to remove the 2 big leaves on the right. I think I'll try a more suitable lens and see if I can take another photo of this flower, if it's still there.
Thanks again.

Here's with a crop, but I think I need to just try and take another photograph and do the cropping through lense.

Hi Tony! Welcome to the Flora gallery! I like your photo, especially the repost. It has a lot of interest and the detail is excellent.

I agree - the leaves create more interest to me than the bloom on the original post. The flower is much more prominent in your repost. There is still a lot of interest in the leaves with the back-lighting and excellent detail. You may want to try a shot just focusing on the detail of the leaves (I suggest a single leaf covering the entire frame if you have a macro lens). My suggestion for the flower would be a tighter crop and maybe a bit more directly at the face of the flower.

I really like the repost. The original had an interesting, artistic look to it, but the blooms were lost and the sky was distracting. I'd be happy with the repost, although you might consider dodging the blooms to make them a little more noticeable.

Tony,

I like the leaves and the bloom a lot. I think the repost is a much stronger image. I think the oddness in the image (the bright blue and the filterish HDR look is just from the back lighting. It's sort of natural HDR. With the exception of the overly bright sky, I like the effect.

Welcome to the gallery. This is a very interesting post, at least for my tastes. I hope to see more of your images here. I'd also be very interested in seeing any more images you do of this subject. I think dogwood is hard to shoot.

pat

Well, my vote is for the repost, I think it was well handled and displayed Tony. Welcome, and I hope to see you here often.
Bob

Tony, I like both images. I do think the repost really allows us to see the wonderful effect you captured here with the leaves and the flower.

Tony: Welcome to the finest Flora gallery on the planet and thanks for a fine first post. The repost is especially nice. I edited your title to reflect a repost. You can do it yourself in the future so that folks know to revisit your shot. Great to have you aboard and looking forward to more.>=))>

Thanks for all the suggestions, they really help. I went back to take more shots with different compositions, but the blooms are already gone, but I'll know for next time out. Thanks Bill for adding the re-post in the title, I didn't know about that.