Used sky as bg and shot upward to exclude all trees as such. Not as easy as one might think! I like the clouds in the lower right, but am not sure if others will.
Kim, I like the vase. It makes this a bit different. The framing is good, and I like the reflections on the vase, and the way it makes the stem seem almost abstract.
In our backyard we have got a crazy sunflower plant that has about 25 sunflowers growing on it at one time and our dogs keep running over the ones at the bottom, so I cut them off and decorate the house with them before they are puppy destroyed. Hence the vase. Probably not the best choice for the reason of your arguement, but the positioning of the sunflower plant is up against our garage and not great for taking pics. So, to make a short story long.... cut the flower off, put it in a vase, put vase on rail... snapped some pics. What I can do different... make the stem longer so that the vase can't be seen, or exclude the clouds to pretend that it's some other bg other than sky. Thanks for the comment.... what do others think... keep the vase???
I like the cloud, as it gives the photo a sense of place, i.e., you know it's outdoors. However, it then leads me to wonder why the flower is in a vase. The sharpness and contrast, especially in the top left hand corner is awesome and eye catching. The bottom right corner is a bit blown out, but the rest is good. This flower almost pulsates with colour!
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