I think we need a check-box in the gallery that says, "Please be honest and give helpful advice, (I'll ignore it if the advice is stupid)." [The folks in this forum are usually pretty helpful and understanding. ] I like this image; it is soft and prickley at the same time. It is mostly about light and image tone, not a scientific illustration of a bur. The selective focus is very appropriate to the mood of this picture. At this close range, the physics of the lens demands that only a narrow slice can be in focus at one time. As you have done, this can be used for artistic affect. The choice is always "which slice?" You can make the slice narrower or wider by changing the f-stop. Larger number gives wider slice, but then needs slower shutter (and a tripod), faster film (more grain), or more light. Sharpest focus is always exactly where you focus on, but extends some closer to the camera, and somewhat more farther from the camera. So there is always a little more margin for "error" farther away. You can use this to widen the slice of sharp focus by focusing a little bit closer than the exact point of interest. In this picture, possibly, you could have focused more on the center bur, and still kept the "1 o'clock" bur in acceptable focus. But this is an artistic choice. That is the nice thing about the digital cameras; you can quickly compare without so much squinting through the viewfinder. Selective sharpness is a very powerful artistic tool to draw the eye exactly where you want it to look. [On closeup things like this that don't move, I've had some fun putting the camera on a tripod, and making several images each focused on a different plane. Then put them together in Photoshop. The result has things in focus that could never normally be in focus.]