Hi Lisa
Allium, also known as Ornamental Onion, come in all different sizes and can be found in most nurseries in the Spring. You captured the color beautifully and I like how the horizontals of the bench are juxtaposed with the verticals of the stems. Overall, however, I'm not sure the composition works for me. In spite of the f/2.4 aperture the phone's camera didn't blur the background sufficiently to highlight the flowers. You might try using the "portrait mode" on the iPhone to artificially blur the background and put focus back on the flower(s). For me, the bench and flowers compete for my attention and the position of the flowers at the very top, to my eye, makes the image look cut off. I think focusing more on the flowers would have been a better choice. I took the liberty of brining your image into Lightroom and made the following adjustments: Vertical crop; highlights -100; exposure +25; Shadows +15; sharpness +20. I lowered the color saturation of the greens and yellows by -22 to help take attention from the background as well as lowering the green luminosity by -75 and yellow by -8. To call more attention to the flowers, I increased the purple saturation by +35 and lastly did a diagonal radial filter to the lower right of the image and took the exposure down by 0.5 stops to call attention away from the diagonal Cana leaf. What do you think? (Lisa, I'm not sure why, but when uploading my edit, the bench magically reappeared, even though on my end I cropped it out....but maybe it actually works better?)   Posted: 02/04/2021 10:57:39

thanks Michael, I agree... I would have liked the flowers to be closer to the bench. The bench is what attracted me in the first place, I gravitate towards geometric lines... and I like purple flowers, even though I never know what they are called.
I never even noticed the diagonal Cana leaf as being so distracting until now.
I don't see the bench in your edit, and the flowers are pretty enough to stand on their own.   Posted: 02/04/2021 11:13:54

The purple color of the onion flowers is beautiful. I like these flowers too, especially they have long stems that stand out as individual flowers,
I agree with Michael that the bench is distracting, and the diagonal leaf as well. I'd suggest to only retain 5 flowers on the left (as Michael's edited version) for better composition since the full resolution of Iphone image is quite large (around 3 Mb) that allows you to crop tighter without losing details.   Posted: 02/19/2021 05:47:51

Adorable flowers, Lisa. They are set in a nice scene with thick greenery for a background. The bench is an interesting contrast to the organic shapes behind it.

I would not have recognized the bench; it looks like a white wooden fence to me. The low angle looking up to the flowers is interesting, as is the diagonal Cana leaf.

I was not able to find a balance in the image. The beautiful flowers are at the top of the frame, and the white wooden back of the bench really stands out over the flowers. The details on the pretty flowers seem a little blurred compared to the bench. The time of day has the highlights overexposed. Perhaps next time, try to isolate the flowers' grouping in an odd number and get closer and more eye level to see details. I wish I could have offered a better suggestion.

LT

  Posted: 02/20/2021 14:04:33

Michael's photo is a different scene, message, comment on nature. Lisa's photo is about the nature of natural beauty in everyday walks. Michael's isolates a beauty within a natural setting. I cannot compare the two on "better"or "worse" scale because they are two different in concept and presentation.
I agree Lisa's fence could be toned down and may be just for fun turn it green or brown.
I guess what I am saying is Lisa's photo tells a story and Michael's is a pretty picture.
  Posted: 02/20/2021 17:04:05

I like the color adjustment that you did from the original with more of a bluish purple for the allium (ornamental onion). I'm surprised that with a f/2.4, the background foliage isn't more blurred. I'm not sure what the brown pile in the center background is (maybe rocks?). I find myself focusing on the brown pile, since I don't know what it is.   Posted: 02/21/2021 18:11:38

Thank you everyone, lots of good comments.... I think Randolph got it right... I was appreciating the bench and the flowers, more so the geometry of the bench with the flowers sticking out of it. I was definitely not attracted to only the flowers.   Posted: 02/28/2021 18:45:54