South of France

Let the critique begin!

#1. Nice - I was aiming for a simplistic, desaturated effect here, with the emphasis on the red flowers.

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

OK, here goes:

#1 - For my taste there is too much empty wall above and too the right. If I just scroll down so that the top of the picture is hidden it looks better to me; if I look at just the bottom third, it looks better yet. I find that the conduit on the left is distracting.

#2 - I find most of the blurred out background just obscures what is in the foreground; particularly in the center. With the lower corners in shade my eye is drawn to the center only to find it cluttered. Also, I'm not sure if it was your intent when you asked about composition; but as soon as I looked at your image for that, the first thing I saw was two large balls with a shaft standing up in the middle.

Full marks for putting these out for comments; the important point to remember is if you like 'em, it doesn't matter what anyone else says. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Spats. Often, my problem lies with identifying that one shot out of a daily tally between 50 and 200. Over a 4 day holiday, that came to 406 photos. It helps to get a second opinion.

I like the first shot but there is a lot of dead space and the picture seems unbalanced, maybe ignore the rule of thirds here and centre the window? The second shot I find very busy and your subject is probably not clear or obscured because of that.

#1 seems underexposed to me.
#2 needs a central subject.

Thanks Chiefy and Qbx!