listening to good criticism

This is the first intentionally planned image from the new Sony a55 camera. When I initially took the image and uploaded it to flickr, I was pretty pleased with the image. The plant's bloom was more subtle and not nearly as bright. You can see the original uploaded version below. 

My BPF (best photography friend) Renee offered up some constructive criticism by suggesting that I should make the flower brighter. Renee was right. I popped the image into PhotoShop and tweaked the brightness in an adjustment layer. The result? The flower really pops. What I originally thought of as subtlety turns out to have been an image that was simply too dark.

Lesson learned? When you have somebody who's opinion you implicitly trust on the matter at hand, listen to them. In this case, what did I have to loose? If I didn't like the brighter version, I could just keep the darker one and stick my tongue out at Renee and say nanny nanny boo boo (not that I would ever do that to Renee).

While we are discussing good advice, hats off to my Uncle Eddy for suggesting the a55 over the a33. I think the camera and I are going to be good friends.

Listen to your friends, you never know, they might be right. Stranger things have happened.