Thanks oriolhdz and jiminyClickit. I appreciate the critiques and thoughts. Thanks also for the image to look at.
I hadn't thought that the flower could hi-light the sun. It definitely does though in this pic. I had taken a few shots without the sunbeam and went back to play with them a bit but I don't like the composition of them compared to this particular one.
I will definitely keep that in mind next time.
Would it be wrong to crop the flower so that the whole flower isn't showing? It's a very long flower and in order to cut the sunlight out of the pic I like, it would make the image really long. Are long images ok or do they look odd?
On the image you provided I notice the tips of the flower are cropped out - or left out of the image but it still looks nice. In order to crop my pic though, it would actually look like the flower is cut and missing part of it. I think so anyway. I'm not sure what others would think.
I will definitely keep on trying. I like the look of macro images and I find it a challenge. I haven't tried too many but want to for sure.
Thanks again...this is a great place to learn. I love it.
Kathy