Total judging points: 26
Judge's Comments:
1. The title says, "Venus Flytrap," but these are pitcher plants, and this is a good display. The plants in the foreground are sharp, except for the left edge of the plant's lip and of the hood of the left foreground plant. (This judge knows that it's a nip-picky remark, but it was one of the first flaws noticed.) The white and maroon of the foreground plants holds the eye and makes them a strong center-of-interest. A tubular stalk in-between two foreground plants is distracting, as is a small white "hood" behind the mouth of the right-hand foreground plant. This judge suggests masking the center-of-interest and reducing highlights of the rest of the image so as to provide some more separation between foreground and background and to reduce distracting highlights.
2. What I like most about this image is how the plants have been sharply captured in their entirety by using a small aperture. What holds this image back for me, however, is that the expanded depth of field needed to get the subjects in focus allows too much of the background to stay in focus and become a distraction. Sharply rendering highly dimensional plants like these without giving similar prominence to objects in the background is admittedly a challenge.
If the opportunity arises to shoot this scene again with this same equipment, it might be interesting to try opening up the lens to reduce the depth of field produced by the wide focal length. This would increase the bokeh and hopefully blur out the background. And the resulting increase in shutter speed would increase the likelihood of success with focus-stacking the plants in the foreground.