[EnglishBob]

California Golden Poppies.

[Pat]

Beautiful shots, the flowers are a beautiful colour.

[Irma]

#1 I like a lot to see all edges of the flower sharp and you can see the stamens sharp as well.. However, I find the background a bit too cluterd and there isn't a clear separation between the flower and the background since the flower is yellow and the green of the grass has also a yellow hue.

#2 I like it. I think in this one your flower stands out more, because the background is more blurred and there is more orange involved there.

Sometimes I handle different adjustment layers in my flower pictures, one for the background and one for the flower, in this case I would work my color balance in the grass, and make it a bit cooler or desaturate it a bit, and the flower in another one. I know those flowers are very colorful, they have a beautiful gradient from yellow to red/orange... Because of this I would try to remove the yellow hue from the grass.

[EnglishBob]

Yeah, I shot them at sunset to increase the yellows in teh flowers, of course it also does the same for the grass.

[ABree]

I like the lighting Craig. Poppies always seem to be happy flowers.

Sharon

[wulinka]

amazing colos! looks like morning light, very soft and nice.

do you intentionally add the vignetting? Personally I don't really like that toom much...

uli

[EnglishBob]

Thanks for the comments, yes Uli, I deliberately added the Vignetting to make the flowers pop more...not sure I like it now either! There was certainly no natural vignetting.... left $5000 worth of gear at home and shot these with a $150 4mp point and shoot LOL.

[wulinka]

I think those flowers don't really need the help of artificial vignetting, their colors are so bright and vivid. Good job!
Once again a proof to the saying, it's not the camera that takes the picture, it's the person behind it.

[shuttertalk]

Nice Craig! The colours are wonderfully bright. Is the first one supposed to be rotated?

[EnglishBob]

Thanks

No, the roatation is correct, however they were growing on a hillside that is all but vertical in places.

[NT73]

Nice colours, they look almost like thin card.

[navis01]

Great shots. I prefer no.2. Great vibrant colours although I would have moved slightly higher to capture a little more of the inside of the flower.