One of my first attempts with still life

[Catalina]

I took this picture of a beautiful flowers arrangement after an important occasion that happened in my house ( the graduation of my son)

I have several questions:
_ Did I managed well the natural light or is it preferable to use a flash in interiors?
- How is the composition? Does it respect the law of thirds?
_I know that the date is a disturbing element, is there a way to remove it?

Thank you for taking interest and time looking and criticizing.

[jcuknz]

The picture on my monitor is very washed out while most others are pretty AOK so I think you have a problem in that regard.
A subject like this does not have to follow the RoT but is closer to the 'mugshot' which is centrally placed in frame
I think if you were taking a close shot of the red rose then you would put it
on the right third as it is facing left.
Removing the date is probably a cloning job which involved copying appropriate material to cover it. It was not that hard with the white tablecloth next to it and the dark green leaves.

Depending on how much you want to spend on photography I suggest Paint .Net as a free download would do the job and a lot more for you. I used Paint Shop Pro x6 which costs about US$100 approx though for this job any earlier version would serve you well ... check Amazon prices if you are in the States. I bought PSPx3 for my notebook for US$15 about a year ago.

It helps in offering advice to know where in the world you are located

[Catalina]

The picture on my monitor is very washed out while most others are pretty AOK so I think you have a problem in that regard.
A subject like this does not have to follow the RoT but is closer to the 'mugshot' which is centrally placed in frame
I think if you were taking a close shot of the red rose then you would put it
on the right third as it is facing left.

I see. The photo is old (2005) is one of the options to be washed out; it might be that there is light in excess.
How about the subject? Is it tacky to take a photo of an arrangement of flowers, as it is tacky to paint one?

[bambleweeney]

This looks a bit washed out on mine too and the white flowers are definately over exposed and have lost detail.
As regards flash - basically light is light and you use it to create mood. Light from a window can be very effective and maybe if you use a white card or piece of white cloth on the opposite side to reflect a little light back into the shadows you can shape and adjust the light. Same thing with flash, it does depend on the subject and the mood you're trying to create, bouncing the flash horizontally off of a reflector will give you a nicer light than full on flash mounted on the camera.
There's a little too much background in this one for me, don't be afraid to pick up your flowers and move them to somewhere more appropriate, maybe look for some cloth or something to put behind them to create a nicer background.
This is one I took a while back, the flowers looked a bit 'cluttered' in the garden so ... I picked them and found a blue vase to put them in and put the lot on a wooden table. A quick search of house and garden produced a couple of other objects I could put in the frame to create a little interest and have a composition of some sort. I placed a black cloth behind it all to remove the busy background and mixed in a couple of off camera flashes with daylight from a window. Just 'play' with the lighting and experiment.

[jcuknz]

You take photos of things that interest you and you want to remember ... I don't often take flower photos becuase apart from my roses I only have weeds in my garden Used my cellphone for this when one of the bushes did well I had generously fed it and it rewarded me .

Yellow is my favourite colour so I only buy yellow roses

[Catalina]

You take photos of things that interest you and you want to remember ... I don't often take flower photos becuase apart from my roses I only have weeds in my garden Used my cellphone for this when one of the bushes did well I had generously fed it and it rewarded me .

Yellow is my favourite colour so I only buy yellow roses

I agree with you yellow roses are beautiful. Yellow roses illuminate the room where you place them

[Catalina]

I am profoundly grateful with your comments. I congratulate you for a nice arrangement and very nice photo. It makes me wanting for to try with still life again.
I will try with the piece of fabric in order to accomplish a good background.
The idea is to use a fabric on the manner that gives contrast, but I can also look for a background color that creates harmony.
I like the flower arrangements like this one of mine, a little bit baroque.
The question is to encompass my preferences inside the rules of photography.