Dandelion Seeds

I used an exposure of f/8 at 1/250 sec to achieve this picture. I

was afraid to use a slower shutter speed because the camera was hand-

held. I know the picture appears soft, probably due the numerous out

of focus seeds and the backlighting. This being said, do you think

this exposure works? Why or why not?

This is good and the DOF works. Different view than what's usually seen.

the out of focus spots in the middle are distracting to me..otherwise a fine shot

---consider plucking the most vertical shafts

from the "puffball" to avoid out of focus ones?

Thanks for the critiques to those who commented. If I find a dandelion with some seeds missing I'll try taking a picture of it. I don't really want to disturb the flowers by plucking seeds myself. Hate to sound corny, but where I grew up, there are a lot of endangered species, so I learned to disturb nothing in nature, even if it is just a dandelion. I appreciate the time everybody took to comment, and good luck in your own photography.