i think i would have cropped this differently. its a lovely shot.. i had a rose that same color in my yard two summers ago. its been replaced by one similar with pink edging to it.

This is the full size shot, I wanted to crop it also, but whatever I tried when I looked at it, it just seemed wrong. Any suggestions?

i keep coming back and looking, so that says something. :P if this is the full size shot..well... hmm. kinda ruins the cropping suggestion. because there isn't much room for a different crop. :P did you do any post editing to this? perhaps lower the brightness and up some of the black levels to bring more attention to the center focus (of course, the flower)...might help to tone down some of the background. *shrug* i dunno. :P

I wouldn't crop out the buds forming..that helps make this shot. the shocks of green next to that bright orange-ish color are something!

Lovely

Is it from Texas?

lol! @ kyricom and thanks!

Wonderful...

very gentle and pretty

my favourite, nice work

The flash kind of kills the shot.

yea i think so too...bt this is my first work so im actually happy with it

i'd love to give you a few pointers on this shot..and some ideas to put in your pocket for the next venture you will come acrossed, as i'm sure you'll do plenty. with the floral thing...the last thing you want is your hand holding them up in front of you...they don't stay still that easily for a good and true "close-up", which tends to put a bit of a blur on the subject. since these have already been cut, you could have easily set up a shot on a better background, using more natural light. Learn to depend alot on natural light because when you are just starting out, a flash can often times be too harsh on a subject leaving the dark shadows cast on the wall and hand in this one. perhaps arrange these flowers in indirect sunlight and then be sure you are steady when you shoot the picture. on a close up, sometimes manual focusing helps more than the auto focus feature. don't know if any of that is helpful to you, but... Just thought i'd pass along a few bits of what little i know.

The rose is out of focus. I would re-shoot it and edit your entry.

This one smells good...