A coulourful plant

[edthened]

Could you tell me what is wrong with this photograph ( if anything )

http://www.flickr.com/photos/edthened/32104112/
Edwin    

[r-brian]

The only thing I can say that might be distracting the the glare off the leaves.  A polarizer should eliminate the glare and make the colors pop even more.

Bromeliads make for interested subjects.  When I lived in SW Florida I collected them for a while.  It was easy when you work in a nursery.   Plus the bromeliads and orchids were just like growing weeds down there, put them out in the back yard, ignore them and then take all the credit when they bloom.

Brian

[sandeha]

It's a detail shot of some kind of succulent (I guess).  The colour is quite strong, but the tones are contrasty with quite a bit of reflective glare - due to flash, perhaps.  Much of the foreground is out of focus and what is in focus (the leaves at the back) is not the most interesting part of the plant.

Tripod, small aperture, focus set on the nearer edge of the 'cup', and a polariser would have helped.  It's dependent on the setting, of course, but ideally the lighting should be less bland - I'd say you might want the red to stand out brighter than the green, so a reflector (or a shield if it's in direct sun) would help.

There are more practised flower shooters around here than me, though.

[Julio1fer]

I rather like it - much better than my own attempts at macro. A nice set of complementary colors, which work very well.

The main problem I see is that the glare areas, especially the one in the right bottom, distract  a bit from the composition by making one look away from the center of interest (which should be the green "circle").

There is a complex array of lines irradiating from that center which is a bit spoiled by the glare.

A suggestion, try cropping the right side -  it would both solve the glare problem and give more dynamics to the image by uncentering the green circle and the array of lines.

[edthened]

Brian, Sandeha & Julio, thank you for the input , it's appreciated very much.

Edwin    

[connealy]

You've got a good start on a challenging area in photography.  One of the problems of it is that it is too easy.  Modern digital cameras with macro capability and wide dof make it possible get postcard-pretty shots easily.  The result is that the world is awash in such pictures, and often they are dismissed out of hand.  
    As Sandeha mentioned, there are specialized techniques and equipment that can help; the really dedicated haul some impressive amounts of equipment into the field including diffuser umbrellas and large format cameras.  
    Of course, it is still the eye of the photographer that is the most importand piece of equipment.  To improve on that, I think it is very useful to look at the work of outstanding practitioners of floral and plant photography.  One of the most prolific modern photographers in the field is Larry Ulrich; I have his book, Wildflowers of the Plateau and Canyon Country.  Besides outstanding images, Ulrich also shows a lot of the technical details that goes into producing his pictures.
    The best book I have on the topic is Flora Photographica by William A. Ewing.  The subtitle is "Masterpieces of Flower Photography 1835 to the present", and it is indeed a breathtaking panorama of what has been done with flowers by the great photographers.  Much of the best work, somewhat surprisingly, is in black and white from early classic masters like Karl Blossfeldt and Imogen Cunningham.
    Another artist I like who does mostly black and white is Don Worth; I only have a small exhibit catalog by him, but I believe there is a fairly recent book out by him.  Worth is a horticulturist who has done much of his best work in his own greenhouse.  The impressive thing about his photos is the way in which he distills the essential characteristics of each plant into a single image; the depth of his knowledge about plants is clearly what gives him the edge.