Violets

Taken last spring,a reminder of things shortly to come.

Canon 20D 100-300 lens

Hello Trevor
Yes, a very pleasant reminder, signs of spring alrady beginning to show amongst the early bulbs around here.
I think your image might have benfitted from a lower view point, to look more directly into the flowers. Another reason for us nature photographers to be classified as mad, lying on our bellies on frozen ground!
Best wishes
Phil

You don't say whether you were using a tripod or whether this was handheld. I ask, because I think that this type of photograph is almost never successfully executed handheld. One of the difficulties of photographing small flowers is finding the subject forming a pleasing arrangement that can be accomodated within the technical limitations of the photographic medium. This image certainly has some pleasing elements and almost works, but there are a couple of things that could have been done to improve the situation. Using the camera on a tripod gives you the opportunity to frame the image and then to look around in the frame to ensure that there are no avoidable distractions, whereas if you are handholding the camera, you are always concentrating on maintaining focus and avoiding camera movement. In this case, using a tripod should have given you the chance to see the light-coloured straw in the background, which could probably have been removed and similarly, the one in the foreground. You might also have seen and considered bending the unopened flowers out of the way.

Good sharpness and colour, but you need to give yourself time to examine the whole content of the frame to ensure that to make the best of the opportunity presented. If you aren't using a tripod, a tripod will help.

Some useful advice here to approach a subject that I have similar difficulty with.

Thanks,
Niall