Brad, I quite like your image as there is a visual disconnect between the flower in the foreground and the skeletal, wind-bent trees in the background. On initial inspection, I wrongly assumed that the coloured flower was set against a monochrome background, but on closer inspection, I could see that it was a colour image. The overall limited colour palette works well and your image is compositionally strong with the flower well positioned off-centre near the third. I find the sun burst top middle a little distracting. In the version below, I have cloned some foliage into the white areas in the sky, cloned out the horizontal branch on the ground and also flipped the image horizontally. The latter works better for me as it strengthens the left-to-right visual flow through the image with good lead-in lines from the bottom left corner.   Posted: 09/05/2023 11:00:25

Hi Brad,
Nicely composed with the flower on the thirds. I'd make a layer above the flower, lighten blend mode, and use a soft brush tool, white color, to make a dappled light onto the flower to mimic the lighting in the forest. Turn the layer into a smart object and use the Gaussian blur and noise filters. Set opacity to taste.
Tom
  Posted: 09/16/2023 09:46:54

Hi Brad, I like the background, it's has an errie feel about it. My comment on this would be to moderatly soften the background using one of the blur tools, the trees don't need to be as sharp as the flower, also slightly darken the background so that the flower stands out more.   Posted: 09/19/2023 04:21:44

Interesting juxtaposition!
The background has a monochromatic eerie dead feeling to it with the calla lily symbolizing hope and regrowth.
Flipping it would make the dead trees lean towards hope...   Posted: 09/25/2023 12:28:25