Still Life High Contrast

[suprspi]

I shot this the other day for one of my photography course assignments. I shot it in a sunbeam so the contrast to ambient was very high. I used a borrowed 50D with a 50mm f1.8 and a Bokeh Masters Kit to shape the out of focus highlights in the background. I was thinking Valentines day, and I wanted the image to feel romantic and maybe a little bit artsy/still life/modern.

I'll not have the chance to re-shoot this, but ideas of what I could have done better would be great. Also, is the shaped bokeh usefull to the composition, or distracting? Is the lighting "good enough"? I hope those comments/questions are a good start for help with critique.

This shot is basically SOOC, with a quick trip to lightroom for RAW to JPG conversion. If post processing is suggested I will try my best, I'm just beginning to learn lightroom and CS4.

[freezeframe03]

The flower looks great in the sunlight and against the black background at the top. I think you could have lowered the composition to capture the whole flower (it looks like you had room to do that with so much negative space above it). The bokeh, imo, is too cluttered together to add to the shot. And the color of the bokeh doesn't work for me either. If the color could be changed and then spread out across the top of the photo it would be better. To save this photo I would major crop to just above the flower, but it would still be lacking due to the bottom of the flower being cut off. If you get a chance to reshoot this some time, I think you could have a pretty cool capture.

[suprspi]

Thanks for the critique. Much along what I was thinking actually. I personally like the bokeh, but I wanted other opinions on it as well. I think I may crop this square or at least down one ratio to 8x10 vs 8x12 (proportionally, not actual size) to remove some of the negative space.

The way the flower was laying on the stool it was on and the fact that I couldn't move it because other students were shooting it as well from different angles, made it difficult. I know it's kind of tension creating with the bottom cut off, and if I did attempt a re-shoot of something similiar that would be the major thing I'd change.

Thank you again for the gentle but correct critique.

[buttershug]

Cool bokeh. And gerber daisy's are my favs. You couldn't have picked subjects I like better.

Having said that, they are competing for my attention and not in a good way. Perhaps crop them into two different photos - or reduce the space inbetween them?

Just my subjective opinion, for what it is worth.
Good luck - let us know what grade you get.