Photo competition, help!

[Tony Figueira]

Hello everyone.

I am really stuck, I'm going to enter a local photo competition the subject is flowers, and I just can't make up my mind in between these five pictures.

There will be three professional photographers judging, so I need your help please.

Wich of these five would you choose and also is there anything that I can do in post processing to improve it or them.











Thank you for your time, and sorry for being a pain.

[Didache]

In my opinion, for what it's worth, I would go with the last one. I'll tell you why:

The first one is pretty complicated. Well shot but there are rather a lot of blooms in there making it hard for the eye to come to rest.

The second isn't very well lit and the background is rather odd. A little fill flash would have helped this one.

The third has a frankly dreadful backround. The red blooms especially make the background rather on the messy side.

The fourth is OK, but there isn't a lot of separation between the main bloom and the ones right next to it on the bottom left. Would have helped if the background ones were more out of focus. As it is though, the flowers in that part of the photo sort of run into one another.

The fifth is by far the best in my view. I would be inclined though to clone out that stick thing running up from the bottom. The slightly curled left petal is a slight problem. Any chance of a reshoot? More choices like the last one would give you more of a selection.

Hope this helps and good luck!
Mike

[Greg McCary]

I pretty much agree with Mike, you really need to watch your background. Anything that takes away from the subject shoud be avoided. The blue support poles shouldn't be in the shot. And yes play around with a flash fill on a few and it might darken the background. Shooting in RAW and processing the image to enhance the lighting, color, contrast ECT will also help. Processing an image really is as important as taking the shot. It's what seperates the good from the average, what you do after you take the picture.

[Frog]

Mike and Greg said it all.

[danic]

I really like the last photo. What lens did you use? Or is it a macro setting on the camera?

[GB1]

Numbers 1 and 3 are my favorites. 1 seems really interesting, but something about the top seems a bit out of place compared to the rest of the image. It might be OK though. 3 has great multi-planar feeling, good exposure, and interesting subjects. It's only problem IMO is that there's no real dominant subject area, so one gets a little confused as to what they should be looking at. Anyway - Good luck on the contest!
G

[Tony Figueira]

Thank you, Mike, Greg, Frog, Danic and GB1.

Sorry to take so long to thank you guy's.

Yeah, as per normal I get to distracted with the beauty of whats directly in front of me and forget whats on the background even after looking at it so many times.

Thanks for your input guy's

[hollis]

I really liked the color in the 1st pic
I cropped it closer & turned it sideways (no more green stick!)
What do you think Tony, better?

[Dylan8i]

my problem with the last one is how centered the blossom is. hollis has a answer though, i like his crop the best... but im sure you could come up with a few more out the the 5 that work pretty good.

[Tony Figueira]

I really liked the color in the 1st pic
I cropped it closer & turned it sideways (no more green stick!)
What do you think Tony, better?

Firstly thank you for your time and yeah I do like it.:thumbsup:

You gave me a few ideas:idea:

I will post another when I get a bit more time

...and once again thank you