Take Off

I like the softness of the petals and the sharp center/bee, I am also intrigued by the way the swoop of the central petals are so nicely aligned with the wings. Beautiful capture.

Light, color, comp, and detail look great at this size Ian..
To be honest with you..at the risk of offending? I would rather see the bee turned towards the lens then faced away...One of the first things that was "drilled" into me when I started out in macro was that the head & eye should be clearly seen. But rules are made to broken. Nice job of breaking the rules my friend

Howard : of course, no offence taken - a very helpful comment, thank you. I wasn't sure this should even be in Macro ( not using a Macro lens e.g. ). As said above, I was really shooting flowers not insects, but this is clearly where bugs go, so I thought I'd better post it here. Maybe Scott might wish to move it to Flora ?

Flora or macro, it is a sweet number. I do agree with Howard about the head and eyes for macro purposes.

Gorgeous colors, and I like your depth of field a lot. Well captured!

Nice job on the flower with the in-focus center and soft petals. The colors are quite nice and the background shows this off well. I like the addition of the bee. . . in fact, I like the bee's pose in this with the angle of his wings and the different back view. It looks like he's trying to hide what he's doing. Sometimes in macro photography you get these little surprises when looking through the lens. Adds to the fun!

Excellent, Ian. I like the way the natural vignette puts the focus right in the center of the flower and on the bee. Even facing the wrong way, I think the bee adds to the image and makes this one a keeper. As for where it's posted, is it technically macro? No, but I still thinks it belongs here, just like my last post. Bug shots r us. Thanks for sharing this excellent image.

Beautiful image of the flower with the soft focus and colors on the petals and a great composition. Serendipity is a wonderful thing and that bee is in the perfect place, even if it is giving you it's back.