My First B&W - Stray Flower

[astrostu]

I was finally processing some photos I took at a conference about 11 months ago (yikes!) and decided that this one looked much better in B&W. I'm normally not a B&W kind of guy with photos, so, what do you folks think?

[Fox Paw]

astrostu, I like black and white for flowers. I like the lines in the background here and I like the tone of the flower. From this angle, though, the flower itself doesn't hold much visual interest for me. There's probably a good photo to be had with these ingredients but I don't think you quite got it. Just one opinion.

[astrostu]

Thanks, Fox Paw. I liked the contrast of the bright flower versus the dark lines in the background - part of why I made this B&W. What would you do differently to this to make it a good shot? Or would it require changing how I actually shot it in the first place (in March 2009 ...)?

[Terri]

My two cents.... B&W can be wonderful for flower shots, and I agree with Fox that you have a lot of good ingredients here. But - alas, the main subject should be the flower and, in this instance, we can't see enough of it. The background is more visually interesting, and that probably isn't what you were after.

If the flower had been angling more toward the camera, "face on" a bit more in this shot (because there's nothing inherently wrong with side views, of course) you might have ended up with a winner.

[Fox Paw]

I would have said what Terri said but not as well.

[astrostu]

Alrighty, well I'm headed to the same conference in 3 weeks, so if the flowers are in bloom, I'll try to do a shot from above the flower.