Oranges

[The LoKW]

I am playing around with the "nifty fifty" and thought I would shoot some still lifes. Here is an image of some oranges - my wife cut into one and the color was so rich and deep they seemed a good subject.

Being the case I was trying to capture both the texture and color of the pieces as well as the luminescent quality of the orange wedges.

I am curious about composition, lighting and post processing as well as any other general feedback for improvement. Appreciate any feedback in advance.

Kevin

Oranges - NiftyFifty by The LoKW, on Flickr

Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.1 sec (1/10)
Aperture f/2.8
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

[anotherphotographynoob]

Technical I think this is a great shot. The two wedges of orange are sharp and like the use of the shallow dof to focus the image on these wedges. The colors in the image are really great!
I have three suggestions/comments:
DOF: may be that the dof is to shallow in the image. I would like to see a version where the half orange was tack sharp too. I realize that this would make less of the knife fade out of focus, so I would suggest rearranging the knife to

Composition: Right now the whole photo is kind of centered. There is no lead in. You could use the knife to create a line into the photo. And then you should either move the whole arrangement further left and create a lot of black space to right of the arrangement. This would put the wedges(you have in focus) in the line of the "vertical" golden third. You could move the arrangement to the right and have the wedges in the other "vertical" golden third line. But I guess this would create to much noise for me as a viewer. The black space is better. More classic still life in my opinion
(I hope you understood my vertical rule of third line. It was kinda hard to explain in written )

Reflections: Maybe you should soften the reflections in the oranges, especially the wedge furthest to the left. The reflections make it look like a product shoot. This could be intentended.

Summed up: Great shot, high quality. You could create a sharper lead in to the photo by working with composition!

Hope you could use some of this

[crockny]

I like this very much -- the orange and blue work well together and I like the diagonal line created by the composition -- good work! I like the glow of the middle orange slice -- the leftmost slice might be a little hot ... it's a really nice compositionl!

[The LoKW]

Thanks anotherphotographynoob for the very thoughtful critique - my wife has asked that I shoot some more fruits/vegetables destined for the kitchen walls and I will definitely take your tips into account with some ideas I have (likely post those for critique as well in fact!).

crockny, thanks for your perspective and guidance as well. I very much appreciate the insight.

Kevin