C&C please ?

Mountainsandh

Any help very welcome. It's mostly composition I'm annoyed with on this one. I like it, because I like the challenge of using manual focus, and I got what I wanted to show... but I'm thinking now : Ok, there are no leading lines, it's all over the place, the focus is confusing, so it's nothing but a messy picture . Meh.
I only asked for C&C once or twice on a different forum, and I was told these same things : eye wanders over the pic aimlessly, don't know what you want to show...
What do you think ?
Any technical bits I can improve on ? No PP yet.
Thks, really appreciate any help, I can take blunt C&C too .
Exif there :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38994151@N03/4824640893/meta/in/photostream/

pullandbang

As above..what is the picture of? The flowers? The cobweb? The fruit? The dewdrops? The leaves?
It's too busy with no point of interest. I'm wandering looking for what it is you saw. What did you take a photo of?

Thecageyone

It seems to be dropping in and out of focus all over the place. I have no idea where my eyes should be drawn to, as they're being pulled and dragged all over the image. And that's not always a good thing! The most in-focus thing in there seems to be the web with dew droplets - But the buds and flowers out front are out of focus, messing it up, the first thing you see. They don't draw you in, they make you dizzy!

You should pick a definite point of interest and make that your focal point, without any messy distractions in front or directly around it. I would suggest keeping it a lot more simplistic

Mountainsandh

Thanks a lot both, your feedback really helps, at least now I can see this happening in my pics . I want to show everything, but it just doesn't work . It's a case of "Oops I did it again". Got to get a grip and pause and ponder another bit before I take these shots .

Thecageyone

I know the feeling, trying to squeeze everything you see all in one But, consider maybe doing a mini-project on a theme? That way you get a nice little series of photographs that relate to one another, but you can concentrate on individual aspects of the scene rather than all at one go.

Tactical

Mountainsandh wrote: »

I want to show everything, but it just doesn't work .

I might be taking the above just a bit too literally but how about using a smaller apeture (and probably a tripod)?

Is it greater depth of field you are interested in or is the above statement referring to the artistic side of things?

I agree with the comments posted by others, the eye doesn't rest easily on the shot.

Heebie

I've been thinking about this.. and if you lop off the top of the image, so that you don't have most of the web.. and you distort the perspective to give the web more depth.. it could look kind of like a "ceiling" of web with water droplets all over it.. that could be kinda neat... and that would give it a focus at least idea-wise. The very unusual looking depth of field might keep it from working.

Mountainsandh

Thanks TheCageyOne, Tactical and Heebie, they're all great ideas actually.
Heebie I just tried lots of different crops (no idea how to distort and whether my Paint.net can do that), but my silly focus/DoF makes every single crop look odd and confusing, unless I really kept a teeny tiny bit with just droplets, but then I don't find it as interesting.

Tactical if I get a chance to re-shoot this I'll definitely try the smaller aperture, maybe I'd be happier with it, I suppose I just got carried away with the droplets and using manual focus (I tend to fixate on one thing at a time and forget the rest , I'm in the Manual Focus phase right now).
Also I think I had a high shutter speed as 2 kiddies were pulling at my legs to walk on , not the most stable scenario.

TheCageyOne, yes, great idea, I'll probably do that when I feel there's too much I want to show. I bet you I'll probably find it was just one thing I preferred after all.

Bottom line for me : learn and re-shoot if still there after the storm that's brewing atm...

Thks for taking the time to look at it and reply !

Mountainsandh

Last post I promise : was looking at my shots of that day and found this one that's actually much better taking on board all your suggestions _I think ? _ except for the blob on the lower left I should have pushed away. :rolleyes:

sheesh

why don't you crop out the blob?
also the colouring is a bit dull it might be worth playing around with the levels and get a more contrasty image and finally as said before smaller aperture to get a greater depth of focus

your shutter speed was fast enough (1/400 sec) that you could decreased the aperture to get a greater dof.

chisel

Yeah, what the others have said. In your last one, my eye is pulled between the droplets on the web, the flower head to the middle right and the leaf towards the bottom. At the same time, if for example, the flower head is the point of interest, then there is too much background above it.

The other thing is that you are at the wrong angle for either the water drops or the flower - because they are photographed edge on you lose the sense of depth between them and they end up blending and looking confusing to the eye.

If you went back (!) and shot from underneath or something maybe, then you would have a more dramatic image with a clearer subject.

Mountainsandh

Thks Chisel, I can go back allright, don't know if the web will look the same though... you're right, a different angle would be great, or interesting to try anyway, but for that I'll have to arm myself with snips, a very covering hat, and wellies . That can be done though, for the right shot !

forgot gloves actually, that's my checklist ready thks to you Chisel