Bug With Dinner

[Rainforest]

Any pping comments welcome on this one. I thought I might use it for photo club competition - I haven't scored very well at my new club so far and thinking about this one it probably won't either but I really like all the color and the whole bug story so that's ok.

[DanK]

To start with a question you didn't ask: my unsolicited advice is to use competitions more to get useful criticism and suggestions and not to worry so much about winning. Of course, I find it very gratifying when I do win, but the fact is I learn a lot more when I lose, if the judge and audience explain what they didn't like.

I think this is a very attractive image, but I also think you face a choice. What's the image about? Is it about a flower with bugs on it, or about the bugs? If it's about the bugs, I would crop it severely, at least to this point:



On the other hand, this sacrifices the gently blurred petals at the top, so if the story is about a flower with bugs on it, I wouldn't want this sort of severe crop.

[Rainforest]

Hi Dan, I agree, it's all about the learning and this year only showing photographs that truly interest me. The crop is great - thank you for that. .....I can't decide! - this is a full frame composition which is hard to come by (for me) so on one level I want to leave it as such. Perhaps it is more about the flower than I realize. Thanks for your thoughts. :0)

[Shadowman]

The thing about judges or anyone who reviews your work is that they have preferences, if you showed them only one subject and they give negative review you tend to feel a bit dejected. If you show them five or six different subjects and they like only one of the six, you know it takes to please them but one of the other five might be your favorite subject and you might feel inclined to ignore your artistic leaning and concentrate on the potential winning subject. Worst case scenario is you show the judge or reviewer five or six subjects and they don't like any.

Regarding your image, it is interesting and does display the insect in an otherworldly environment (talking aesthetics not reality), problem is there's so much more of that world that the eyes are drawn away from the insect; plus there's too much softness overall that I see as OOF and judges may also see the image in the same way. Additionally, there is so much more to the image other than a bug having dinner, there are colors, shapes, layers, that all serve as elements and the problem with this composition is that those other elements dominate.

[Geoff F]

I'm not the best person to give advice for competitions, Susan. Not really a competitive person and I rarely vote for winning entries in our CinC competitions. However, I totally agree with the previous comments. There are a number of crop alternatives with this image and the main subject is well focused with good exposure. But if you crop close enough, will the resulting image be sufficiently large?

[Rainforest]

What I truly appreciate about CC is how the thoughtful comments give me new eyes to see. Thank you so much. Ya know there is A LOT going on here... and I'm not sure I have enough image to play with if I crop, crop, crop. Anyway, here's where I am as of now and thank you! again. Well, the Tiny pic isn't working for me right now - I'll try later.

[Wavelength]

Excellent image