sticks

[John Chardine]

The reflections of these emergent sticks caught my eye while I was photographing birds recently in Sackville, NB. I cleaned up the water a little at the top left. No crop.

40D, 100-400 mm @ 160 mm
capture date: Tuesday, May 6, 2008 2:07:28 PM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 640
shutter speed: 1/2000
aperture: f8.0
exposure bias: +0.7
metering: Pattern

[Robert Amoruso]

John,

Been thinking about this since this afternoon and it just doesn't do it for me. I think going with the more simplified composition - less of the sticks - would have helped. You have a merge with the grass and stick on left and the top diagonal stick on right with one of the vertical sticks at its top. Walking around the scene might have yielded a better composition. If all the the branches were diagonal, that might have yield a better design.

Anyway, that's just me. I will be interested in others comments to see if I am off on this one.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi John,
The concept I like..........I've put a lot of thought into this one also. The small twig and the BG twig merging are the most bothersome for me. I took this one into PS and played for quite a while......adding a pinkish color.......removing things......finally a B&W conversion with removal........but I don't know if you are comfortable with that and I'm not sure I totally love it........but i feel with some effort..........you may have something there...........which brings me to my final point.........If you feel this grabs you in the field............work it, just like you would the birds.......you'd be surprised with the improvements you could have made in the field (at the very least the reflection merge of the BG branch). I'll post the B&W version (hope you don't mind) just to show how far I went........this one may classify for OOTB!
Roman

[Leroy Laverman]

I think the twigs that Roman removed help the composition. The part that I think is most distracting in the original is the choppy water. I would like this much more if it had been perfectly still with a mirror like reflection. When it's captured that way I think shots like this have a nice abstract quality; like sticks being suspended in space. I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself adequately here but with the visible ripples on the water surface it's too 'real'.

[John Chardine]

Many thanks for all the thoughtful comments. I really like the feel of the repost by Roman- much more of an artistic feel to the image. I play a bit and repost too.

[Robert Amoruso]

John,

I like what Roman did with the repost. I was less then helpful with that critique - just read it and very dissatisfied with myself for writing it the way I did. Please accept an apology.

[John Chardine]

Not at all Robert. Not a problem. I was impressed that you and Roman had put so much time into thinking about the image. I should have done that before posting! I haven't had a chance to rework yet- too many bird images! The only part of your comment I had a chuckle with was "walking around the scene" which in this case would have meant wearing hip waders. I have a pair but I didn't have them on right then!

[Robert Amoruso]

Not at all Robert. Not a problem. I was impressed that you and Roman had put so much time into thinking about the image. I should have done that before posting! I haven't had a chance to rework yet- too many bird images! The only part of your comment I had a chuckle with was "walking around the scene" which in this case would have meant wearing hip waders. I have a pair but I didn't have them on right then!

Thanks John. I thought the same thing when I wrote that past about walking around the scene. I said something similar on a post of a scene looking off a cliff and the photographer quipped back, tongue in cheek, that he would have fell to his death doing that. Comments like mine are only to get photographers thinking about moving around it a scene to investigates the possibilities. I also know when I write them there was a good chance the photographer had not other options to walk around.

Keep 'em coming and I will have to visit Avian to see those bird images.