Wild Azaleas and repost

I've always had a difficult time shooting azaleas (could be that intoxicating smell) close-up, so I tried something a little different this afternoon and backed-off and tried to work their form and shape. I especially liked the backlight, and would be interested if this shot works for you. Thanks for looking.

D2x
105mm micro Nikkor
f/8; 8 sec.

Interesting, Bill. I'm not sure it entirely works for me. Parts of it do, however. The light on the flowers is exceptional, but maybe on the whole it's a little scraggly and competes with the background? Just my two cents worth!

Bill, the light is beautiful on this one, but I do think the image is a little busy overall. Too much competition between the FG and BG, in my opinion.

Bill for me, the light really helped to give an almost 3D feel to this shot. Your subject seems to exhibit separation from the background. The bg does detract from the blooms in my opinion, lots of intersecting lines. You shot at f/8, would opening up have blurred the bg more with that lens while retaining enough dof for the subject?

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I agree that it is pretty busy, and wasn't sure about how much to open up and still keep the blooms sharp. Here is another at f/5.6, that helps isolate the blooms a bit more.

The separation is much better in this image.

Much more pleasing results Bill. Somehow I knew that you shot this at more than one aperture setting.

yep, the second is way better, well done

The repost is the better of the two. It makes the flowers more of the main element of the shot.