Take this image. Clearly the lighting is bizarre..the sun itself is very bright while everything else is darker than dark. That's usually not a good thing. And yet..it seems kind of cool! Look: there's even a fuzzy bumble bee! And interesting flowers..and some kind of fruit.. I think it's kind of a curious photo, really, but nothing to write home about...it's really just too dark in all the important places. But, in truth, I really don't know what to think anymore about it. So I turn to you, kind people. :) What do you think? Do be honest.

What works in one image may not work in the next. I think it all comes together here quite nicely. Reminds me of an album cover. So, while I don't know if it is "art", I like it and certainly don't think it is rubbish. For me, it creates the mood of the end of a waning summer afternoon.

It's interesting. But the bright sun hurts my eyes when I look at everything else. There is also a bizzarre and annoying blue line along the edge of the fruit near the top. I guess this would be a good example of why you don't shoot backlit subjects without some kind of light in the front. I imagine this would be a great shot if the sun was behind the viewer.

I have been sitting here looking at this image for about a half hour now, and I am still not sure what advice to give you. Here are my thoughts... I like the natural lighting and I like the dreamy dappled effect the dof has created with the background. What bothers me is the bottom left hand corner being blown out, and subject being lost in the shadows. I had a similar situation when shooting a wedding in the bright noon day sun. I used a flash unit to fill in the shadows on my subjects, but still had a background that was blown out. Had this been a different subject (ie: a landscape), I would have stopped the aperature down and shot the subject in sillouhette, however this is an image of a bee and the lighting here is not in your favor. I personally might have used the preset on my camera for backlight, but then your subject would have been flashed and you would have lost the natural lighting. Brenda :)

It may not be the best photo but if you do poser or daz you can put a fayie in the left hand corner[where the light is] that way it will block out some of the light and it will make a great background

oh fogot do not post the poser image here post it in poser

I take gazillions like this and just chalk it up to practice.Studying the settings to see what I could change nextime round. No worries, Mayliah you will take thousands more.If you do keep this in a file, who knows maybe parts of it can be used for some other piece of art.Can also use as a photoshop tester. See what can be done.

In my opinion you should make your own decisions, you are the artist and if you like it then that is justification enough to show it. You are not taking photographs for a client who is paying you money and has to be satisfied, you have only youself to please. I have found myself in similar situations in the past and have come to the conclusion that worrying about whether this person or that will like my image is the road to madness and will not provide any satisfaction. This is not to say that helpful criticism is not extremely useful.

I dont think it holds the same quality than your other work, but I love that warm light and i would treasure it if i were you. Personally i dont think i upload more than every 10th photo i finish working on. The rest i just keep for personal "viewing-pleasure". And this doesnt look "darker than dark" on my screen by the way. Like how that bright light shines through those berries or whatever it is. I have billions of shots like this, that came out really cool on my LCD panel but then when i viewed them on my screen they arent that much to brag about. I still keep them for the reason Doug mentioned, they might come in handy sometime. Have a wonderful saturday Stephanie.

Thank you everyone for your kind replies. You have confirmed my gut feeling that it's just not one of my better photos...but yet it is a jewel in it's own right, interesting, curious, and worthy of tucking away somewhere on my computer to be discovered another day. :)