They came from outer space...

[bhurley]

When I take photos of flowers I usually try to get some of their environment with them rather than close-cropping or using a macro lens. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but I think it works pretty well with these two photos from our rock garden:



(this one would have worked better if I'd moved the camera down just a bit to capture more of the bottom of the plant.

and

[Geoff F]

Basically, these work well, Brad.

I can accept that a little piece of greenery is missing from the first one but I'm more concerned about the piece of stick in the background which I find distracting as it is different from the rest of the soil.

Ideally, I would have moved it before shooting. But so often, I also miss something obvious while messing around with other items before a shot.

With the second scene, I think that stone in the bottom left corner is too dominant, and being out of focus actually makes it more noticeable to me.

I would like to crop the left side and top to remove around half of the stone which should concentrate more on the main subjects.

[bhurley]

Thanks Geoff -- good suggestions! I totally agree about the stone. Unfortunately there's no way I could move that without disrupting Domestic Tranquility (my girlfriend is the rock garden designer). ;-)