Shooting Star

My eyes are tired from looking at this. I would certainly appreciate opinions from some of the more trained and clear eyes around here!

Very nice image, I have been using reflectors in some of my closeup shots and this one could use some reflected light from underneath front as it looks a bit flat and underexposed on the lower part of the flower, hiding some of the detail of the stamen and antlers.

Curious as to why you used ISO 400 and not 200, was there movement from a breeze?

What lens did you use? I have also been using some selective Gaussian blur to smooth out the background in shots where the bokeh could be better.

I think this shot has a lot more potential with a few tweaks.

It was VERY windy.
This was shot using a 18-70mm with a 25mm ext tube.
It is backlit; I wanted to convey a bit of the translucency of the petals. I agree that the tip is a bit underexposed, but I was more interested in the sunlight coming from the rear and didn't want to add a light source from a different direction to the flower, but chalk that up to my limited experience.
I DID use Gaussian blur on background, especially on the flower in the upper left BG.

thanks

For the most part it comes down to what you want as the photographer, if you are happy with it. here is a sample of a backlite flower with some reflected light from lower front, it still retains the backlite effect with the added benefit of bringing out highlights in the front.

Thanks Jimmy,\
I may go back with my reflectors and give it another look. I very much appreciate your insights.
What I was wanting from this shot was a more environmental picture of the flower (i guess that comes from my main experience of documenting wildflowers found in this park) illustrating not only the plants, but their preferred habitat, so I tend to leave some detail of the rest of the plant in the background without detracting from the single central subject. I am not sure how well I achieved that. I am often criticized for leaving my BG's "too busy".
Thanks again

Very nice image. I agree that some more light below would help, but OTOH it has a certain 'look' to it the way it is. I prefer backgrounds that are less busy than this and often try to compose a single blossom on its own. Sometimes it doesn't work out, however.

I went back to the woods with my foldable reflector and reshot the star.
While it was much windier and I have one OOF petal, the fill light beneath the flower certainly pays off:

Thanks for all the ideas.

shoot flowers on a cloudy windless day and they will be spectacular. . .

Definitely better with some reflected light the background looks much better. I agree with FinalShot about a cloudy/diffused/shaded day. direct sunlight can be too harsh and colors can get washed out. As we all know there are trade offs. these flower can move at the faintest of breezes.

Jim