CC Leaves

This was shot on an overcast day in RAW so I can play with the exposure. I was also thinking about upping the saturation. Don't hold back.

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THe upper side of the photo is very harsh, hard to correct that. You could have been closer, separating the leaves from the BG more.contrast is needed. I would retake.make it more interesting

The small group of leaves that is up close and in focus is clearly the subject and are very nice, but the background kills it. There needs to be a separation.

Ok, thanks guys. I tried to get as close as possible but the branch was too high. Would it have worked better in BW or would the contrast still transfer over?

I rarely shoot on overcast days because I have found over the years that most everything I shoot on overcast days that includes sky light is flat, dull, and lifeless. I live for directional light these days.

This photo is very nice. Anyway I have few comments as follows:
1. Background does not help your leaf shot to be outstanding.
2. Lighting: Let's try to shoot this shot again when lighting is behind the photo because you will have nice detail of leaf with rim light.
3. Composition: You may try to apply the rule of third for this shot.

Mike787 wrote in post #9204593
Ok, thanks guys. I tried to get as close as possible but the branch was too high. Would it have worked better in BW or would the contrast still transfer over?

It is unlikely that a B & W conversion would alleviate the problem.

If you need separation, the only way that you can get it would be to zoom in with a longer focal length, or move in physically, and shoot wide open.
Either doubling your focal length or cutting your distance to the subject in half, everything else being held constant, will reduce the depth of field by a factor of 4.

The composition suffers from a lack of contrast between subject and background. It's really difficult to get a sense of subject because it is lost in a background of the same color. The sky is white so the image features a high contrast graphic element which has a dominating effect. I am not sure how you are going to get an image here but Bob has some ideas to explore.