[Petographer]

When at work today I was near a flowerbed full of tulips. I just happened to notice these pieces of driftwood and one with a hole in it where the knot was. I thought it was a opportunity for a shot so I started looking through the knot at different angles to see if it would line up with one of the tulips. Sure enough there was one. I took a total of 32 shots. I get home and load these on the puter and open them up in photoshop. Screeeeeech, roadblock! I don't know what to do with it. Any ideas?

[slejhamer]

It's an interesting "frame" so just crop away the distracting edges.

[shuttertalk]

Hm... yes, interesting frame. Would it help if the frame were more in focus, I wonder? Maybe using a larger aperture...

[slejhamer]

:whispers:
ST: smaller aperture.

[Toad]

Let's start with the basics - dead center composiiton gives you no reason tolook beyond the center - try the rule of thirds for visual interest...

[Petographer]

Here is some data:
400 iso
1/60 sec
f-11
@ 105mm

As you see I tried to get a shallow dof without having to go to a higher iso. @ 1/60sec I wasn't sure about getting camera shake. I likely could have went as slow as 1/30 no problem or even 1/20 as I used the 105mm.
I tried Toad's suggestion at first by cropping it by using the rules and found it to work for composition but made the shot less interesting as it took away much of the driftwood and it's textures.
Do you think that maybe a much higher f-stop and a tripod would be the only solution for this? I think Jules is right about bringing the wood more into focus even if he meant higher f-setting, smaller aperture.

[Irma]

I have played a little with your picture but nothing has made me happy yet.

I would suggest if you can take a picture again to get in focus the tree and blur the flower just a bit. Getting closer perhaps to get the flower bigger and trying to make with the tree hole a natural frame for the flower. Well, I don't know if it works, but it might be an option to try.

[EnglishBob]

So much blurred foreground really bothers me, don't know how I would improve it. Shame because the tulip looks great.

[shuttertalk]

:whispers:
ST: smaller aperture.

lol... another example of where my thoughts don't match reality.

I meant bigger number... but you're right - physically smaller aperture = greater DOF