|
| Group |
Round |
C/R |
Comment |
Date |
Image |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Comment |
David, I think this shot definitely provides the sense of confusion you are after. Until I examined the four nearest zebras closely, and settled on the two facing animals, my eyes were not sure where to land. The black and white presentation helps here too--the background zebras sort of blend in. Question: The background zebras have a slightly unnatural appearance. Is this how the exposure started out, or were they digitally blurred? |
Oct 9th |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Reply |
Larry, I wasn't really suggesting that you go to a rocky seaside in gale force winds--I certainly would not. During Hurricanes, I sensibly hunker down.
Love the chicken! |
Oct 9th |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Reply |
Butch, having never heard of a lightning trigger before, I now have serious gear envy ;-) |
Oct 5th |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Comment |
Larry, good on you for taking on such a challenge. As you describe, capturing water spouting through chimneys and blow holes is a serious challenge (as I learned well in Hawaii a while back). How can a still capture the dynamic power so present when experienced in person!?
One thing I think is that the overwhelming power of the ocean, and that this power drives the plume is necessary to complete the story. In your photo, the ocean looks level and calm, so the relationship between its power and water the plume is weak. Perhaps braving storm conditions would provide the roiling ocean and overwashing waves needed to drive the relationship home?
Technically, the image is sharp but a little dark and flat for my taste. I tried lifting the exposure, blacks, and shadows, but concluded that the dark areas in the rock may be too underexposed to recover (of course, the raw file might have more information). Increasing contrast helped a little, but bumping yellow (+50) and orange (+30) luminosity brightened the sand, which in turn brightening the image. Cropping the bottom more, centering the plume vertically and reducing the amount of rock and sand, brought more emphasis to the plume. Finally, it looks like JPEG compression pixelated and discolored the sky, probably to compensate for the complexity of the rock.
|
Oct 5th |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Comment |
Cindy, I really like this photo. Your adjustments really pulled out the leopard's beautiful coloring. Nicely done. The slightly anxious, questioning look makes me wonder what it will do next. Is it thinking fight? Or is it thinking flight?
This led me to wonder if a different crop would tell a bigger story. What is the story told if the dark woods on the left is included?
|
Oct 4th |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Reply |
(continued)
I also attempted masking the second egret and reducing saturation (image attached). This turned the blue to gray, but of course will only work on mostly-white objects. |
Oct 4th |
 |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Reply |
Larry,
In this photo (and others I took from the same angle around the same time), I think the blue on the second egret is from shade, and the blue on the water is reflected sky--the sky was mostly clear the day this was taken.
When I shift the white balance to shade (4,300, +8) in Lightroom, the second egret is much closer to gray, but the reeds change to almost orange (they are mostly straw-gray in January). Shifting the white balance to daylight (5,500, +10) yields less blue, but again the reeds turn orange. If it were Golden Hour, this might be realistic, but these photos were taken 2 hours after sunrise.
While writing this email, I experimented with masking the gray parts of the second egret and adjusting the WB. This seems like it has promise, but without access to the Color Mixer (which not available for Lightroom masks), it is beyond my Lightroom talent.
I had more success reducing the blue saturation using Color Mixer (-50) for the entire image, but this also removed the pretty blue reflection on the water (image attached). |
Oct 4th |
 |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Reply |
Butch, thank you for your feedback. I agree on most counts. Unfortunately, given that the reeds were 5 - 6 feet tall and surrounded all but 2 feet of perimeter, this was the best I managed of the many shots I took. With wildlife, sometimes we have to take what we can get!
I really like the interaction between the two egrets and believe it helps tell a story. Watching them, I wondered if the second egret was young and learning from their senior. I tried to hint at this in the image. Perhaps a different crop would help?
Thoughts? |
Oct 4th |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Comment |
Butch, how wonderful that the weather came to you in the end!
There must be a knack to capturing lightening that I have yet to figure out. I have tried many time-lapse exposures, and always the landscape winds up too bright and drowns out the lightening. I can capture the moon using time-lapse, but not lightening. Was your capture a time-lapse exposure, or were you also lucky with shutter timing? |
Oct 4th |
| 67 |
Oct 25 |
Comment |
Very nice capture, Bud! I love birds in flight, but find dark birds and bright skies to be a formidable bane. I am somewhat amazed that both the under-wing shadows and the head are both nicely exposed. Did you do any extra processing to bring these out? |
Oct 4th |
5 comments - 5 replies for Group 67
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5 comments - 5 replies Total
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