Monochrome rose

[Chairman Bill]

From Cothay Manor, Somerset, this afternoon

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Hmmm... getting a bit macabre, aren't we?

[Chairman Bill]

No. Macabre is pulling the petals off, then sticking the stems in a vase, Addams Family style 

Maybe the colour one is more to your liking?

[sdwilsonsct]

Lovely texture in the b+w. I could do with a bit more context.

[luxborealis]

It's a beautiful photograph as is, Bill, but may I suggest a slight brightening of the petals. From my perspective, it would return to the flower to the richness and presence the flower deserves. Perhaps it is seen as macabre by Slobodan because it appears in B&W to be more dead than alive. Brightening the petals might bring back some of the glory of its life, it's last bit of verve.

Also, I'm generally not one to centre things, although I recognize there are times when elements of a work must be centred. To me, this is one of those times. But unless you made this photograph with 4x5, then you have made a decision to crop and your cropping kept slightly more on the right of the rose than on the left. As I am constantly exploring composition and cropping, it would be helpful to me to know why you chose this slightly off-centre composition. Even, "just because I felt it worked best this way", would be helpful.

Thanks for sharing.

[Chairman Bill]

Thanks for that, Terry. The slightly off-centre thing is because I simply cropped a square at the bottom of the frame. I shot in portrait orientation, to avoid unwanted aspects of the surroundings, but then decided the area above the rose was definitely surplus to requirements. Nothing unpleasant, but nothing of pictorial note either. In retrospect, I should have been more careful with a central positioning in a square crop.

I'll have a go at lightening the petals, and correcting the crop, then repost & see what you think.

[Chairman Bill]

Well, here's my re-working, and it just goes to show that Terry is rarely wrong in his advice. Or if he is, he wasn't in this case. A more central positioning & the petal lightening has worked. I've burned in the background a bit too, which hopefully helps.

[Kerry L]

I'll have a go at lightening the petals, and correcting the crop, then repost & see what you think.

Stay with the B&W version S.B. hasn't had his coffee yet.

I'm glad I waited  for the new version before awarding a 5 star rating instead of a 4 star.  

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Perhaps it is seen as macabre by Slobodan because it appears in B&W to be more dead than alive...

Indeed.

In color, it goes from orange to various shades of pink, some rather dark, but it still looks very much alive and healthy.

In the OP, it looks like the proverbial English smog, with its fine coal dust particulates, fell on it and is killing it slowly. Yeah, I know you guys do not have that anymore, but stereotypes die slowly too.

Film photographers would have used a strong orange or red filter to bring back the healthy look, darkening the leaves along the way (which is something you are getting close to, but not there yet, in your second version - in my humble opinion, of course).

In other words, unless your intention is to portray decaying and death, we want our roses to be lovely and bright and very much alive, even in black and white.

[stamper]

Terry was right the lighter version is better. However the original version and the colour version were perfectly fine. Some fine images in the critique forum in recent times. Better than looking at all of the pie charts of lens tests!