Yellow Rose

[extricatr]

These are a couple of pictures that I took of my wife's yellow roses in the yard. The first shot was in the afternoon when the sun was behind the house. The second shot was in the morning. I know as a general rule of thumb the sun should be at the shooters back, but this was the best shot to have a decent back drop. The only thing that I did adjust on the shots was the sharpness, I really like how it brought out the small hairs on the roses. Any thoughts on how to make this a better shot?
Thanks.

The first shot of the bud:
Nikon D90
105mm
ISO 900
1/125
f/5.6

Second shot:
Nikon D90
50mm
IS0 200
1/200
f/7.1

[crabbyman]

I'll chime in with my 2 cents here, but I'm certainly no expert so feel free to ignore me .

I really like the first one, the only thing I might change would be to crop it up a little to remove the leaf tips. I feel like they're a bit distracting because I'm trying to figure out what those little things at the bottom are.

In the second one, to me, there are 2 problems. First, I find the slightly out of focus rose in the front distracting (maybe I'm just easily distracted?). To me its like a picture where a stranger just randomly pops up and becomes "that guy in the picture". Second, the bush in the background and the leaves on the rose itself that are overexposed pull my eye to them and away from the subject, but especially the rose leaves. Maybe you can crop them out? Or, maybe you can take this later in the day or on a cloudy day when the light is still good, but not so harsh.

[extricatr]

Thanks for the input crabbyman. I didnt notice the leaves on the bottom peaking in there, definately an easy crop fix. The second picture I was trying to play with the whole depth of field thing. I didnt even consider that it would seem like the whole random stranger thing. As for the lighting I have to agree, I could have waited for the sun to go behind the house. Thanks for the input, good things to consider.