Claret Cup Cactus

What a great composition of blooms on this cactus.  Reds are hard to control and tend to bleed.  You've handled the color well.  Have never seen a cactus bloom... is on my bucket list.

Well filled frame with beautiful flowers and rugged thorns. I like this immensely! My only nit is the green at the top being quite a distraction. I don't think you could eliminate it entirely without a lot of delicate cloning. However, A slight crop removing about half of it would lessen the impact quite a bit.

I like the composition and colors.  The reds are so strong that I really did not take notice of the green edge at the top of the photo.  Well done.....................Jim

Certainly a eye-catching blooming cactus image, Gerald. Really beautiful. I do agree with Phil about the green on top, and with his crop suggestion to reduce that. I also wish the bottom two flowers were sharper, but these are minor nits.

A nice grouping of blooming cactus. Great composition. All the flowers are in good shape. Well done!

Gerald: Beautiful subjects nicely composed and captured. I'm OK with the prickly pear on the top but cropping a little would make this a tiny bit stronger. On the larger version there is a little bit of softness in the flower centers at the bottom which is less noticeable on the smaller image. Looks like you needed the POF to be slightly closer to the camera and/or a touch more DOF. Still a delightful image. >=))>

Also for me the composition is the best quality of your image. A splendid photo and not else as all the good advices has been already written.

A beautiful composition, Gerald, with good dof putting all but the two nearest blooms in crisp focus-maybe f/22 next time?.  Do you use "live View" to compose?  The colors are wonderful and the processing looks excellent.