I was shooting something totally different and stumbled on this by accident. I ended up liking it much better.
Auto Levels
Curves - brightened just a bit
Unsharp Mask
Neat Image
Draganize Action
Saturation/Hue - took out a little of the color
Minimal Dodge & Burn
Added Border
Save for Web
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What an interesting image - my first thought was you had spray painted some poor bug gold!
I guess our bugs in Utah just aren't as interesting - hard to find a discarded shell laying around. Enough of that - let's talk about your photo some...
Composition:
You stuck to the rule of thirds - a plus in this situation. The thing that jumps out at me is the visual "noise" behind the bug shell itself. The out of focus section of your photo is still in focus enough that it gives a "noisy" (almost like running "noise" in Photoshop and then "median") background that visually competes with your foreground.
You shot at f/7.1 - perhaps down to a f/4 would have blurred that background even more - drawing the attention of your audience to your real subject.
Although, a gold bug certainly does a lot of "standing out" already, the shallower DOF will give you a stronger photo IMO.
Another thing you might want to try is tipping your camera. If the line of the tree that shell is mounted to were to move from the lower corner and hit say midway up the right hand side, forming a nice little right triangle in your image - you would have more energy in your composition. This is something I have started doing with all my "stationary" objects, and I've been pleased with the results - so it may be something you would like to try.
Lighting:
Hard to tell what's going on here for me. I saw that you were at 1/640 of a second and thought you were in bright light - but then I saw the 1600 ISO!!!
It's that darn Draganize action - it makes it hard for me to comment on your lighting.
I can comment on your finished product. Draganizer has squashed your blacks to oblivion! So much detail has been lost in your shadows that your image feels "muddy" to me.
I would love to see the image processed without that filter.
If it was the bright light (relatively) that I'm thinking, I wonder if a bounce card under the bug to reflect some light up into those shadows would have balanced your image -
Again hard to tell with the action being applied... I just throw it out there for consideration.
If it were a perfect world:
At least according to me, this would have an angle in it, and would be processed with more detail in the darker areas of the photo. Those two factors would give you a stronger photo IMO, with shallower depth of field rounding out my top three recommendations.
I admire your insight for the topic of this challenge, and think your creative idea was an excellent fit. I hope some of my comment here has helped. Feel free to contact me with any questions regarding this critique through the message system here on DPC.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work, and hope you find your time here at DPC as productive and stimulating as I have.
Very good bug picture! Is this just the outer shell that the bug shed? If so maybe a better caption would have helped..."only a shell of what once was" or something along those lines. This is a very good image though 7
Cicada shells are fascinating. Did you ever see that exceptional image in the DPC files of a cicada emerging fresh from its shell on a lawn. It is amazing. But to get back to this image. I think it does in a science fiction-like way evoke a desolate feeling. Nice idea and something different too.
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