Thanks Asher!
Did you mean, that pale and soft is a good or a bad thing?
I kinda liked the desaturated feeling, it gave some peace to an overly red rose. But the white... well yeah. Something should be done about it.
Heikki,
Here you have faced a conundrum we fall into with forum-based feedback. A lot that you are told might be actually invalid for the picture in question, for all sorts of reasons, (esthetic considerations being the least important). That you
like what you share here is the strongest!
However, "Something should be sone about it." means you are not sure now.
The OOF leaves a a good notion. They do feel very misplaced, now when i look at it.
I had terrble time sharpening this one. This is actually the best i could do, need to learn more."
Your pictures are I believe for your own pleasure so that's the way you must measure what you do. Do you want to sell it to me? It would have no worth if I made you go against your own instincts and needs to have the picture "work for me"!
Once you declare what you treasure and what you reject emotionally, all we can do is try to understand and then endeavor to get into your experience or, failing that, to just move on.
Having sad that, in terms of composition, the picture is not strong enough here with the background's stuccato, attention getting blobs and untidiness.
Let's see where you can go now and be true to yourself! Your esthetic choices of "soft" and "low saturation" are not challenged by me then. When you make a new picture, make sure that leaves n the front are not blurred to the extent that they intrude. The soft OOF background just needs to be merely agreeable and not, in itself, more significant that your delicate subject.
Asher
We're discussing this dilemma of honesty versus "success" that seems to plague us sometimes when folk tell us what's "better". The thread is
here
