Let's try that again!

Diligent followers of this blog will remember the pictures of the flowers and sunset from my last post. I returned to Richmond Beach last night to get a second crack at that subject. I chose that night in particular due to the haze made up of wildfire smoke blown into the Puget Sound area by easterly winds--as I predicted, it lent un unusually rich orange to the sunset.

This time, I went ahead and positioned the flower above the sunset. Despite the apparent narrow depth of field, I actually shot this at f/14. I was so close that I needed to stop all the way down to f/14 to preserve a bit of shape in the background flowers and the Puget Sound. I don't like the leaf tip intruding from the left; other than that, I like the way this turned out. I think it's more compositionally compelling than the picture from the last post. Part of this is because the flower is higher and closer in the frame, lending a greater deal of intimacy. Another reason might be that, since the sunset itself was a bit darker, the contrast was lower and I preserved more color in the foreground. A third reason is that the background of the Puget Sound itself is clearer and more continuous than in the last picture. I dunno. Do you think it's better?