Kissimmee Prairie

[Judd Patterson]

http://www.juddpatterson.com/BPN/kissimmee_prairie.jpghttp://www.juddpatterson.com/BPN/kissimmee_prairie1.jpg
Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park (FL)
Canon 5D, 17-40mm f/4 @ 21mm
1/50, f/20, ISO 200, polarizer, handheld

I was on my way to the BPN GTG at Ft. DeSoto and just had to take the scenic route through a park that is new to me. :-) There are some nice wildflowers beginning to bloom and I had some great clouds for about a half-hour before torrential rain hit.

[John Blumenkamp]

Nice capture Judd... I like how you arranged all the varying elements in the image. Question - when you use a polarizer on the wider angles of the 17-40 with the 5D, do you find it works evenly on skies? Hope to see more.

P.S. Your thumbnail wasn't showing up on my end.

[Julie Kenward]

Beautiful image, Judd. I like the placement of the wildflowers going back on a diagonal like that. The sky works very well with the foreground. It does feel like it's a bit cut in half by the horizon line to me. Maybe more sky and less ground or vice versa? Just a thought...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Judd,
I do love the clouds......but agree that the split interest is a bit distracting???..........not sure on this one overall.........will think about it and see if I can come up with more of an explanation.

[Judd Patterson]

Yeah, I don't know what happened on the thumbnail. I recall there is a trick to get it to regenerate the image, but I've failed so far.

A polarizer with my 17-40 on a 5D is generally a mess...especially if you have a pure blue sky and a horizontal image. Since the clouds really broke up this scene and I was going for a vertical (less of a polarization effect from the left to the right side of the image) I decided it was beneficial to use.

Thanks for noticing my fairly even division between earth and sky Julie. :) From the angle where I took this image (on my knees) I felt the composition mostly created itself...wanted the top to end above the cloud and the bottom just below the palmetto. Granted, there were other options if I had gotten even lower, but the veg might have started to obscure my view. Definitely a valid comment even if the balance seems to work to my eye. Thanks!

[Robert Amoruso]

Judd,

I like the comp as is - the balance works IMO! I like the large cloud balancing the plants in the FG. I do not know what the purple plants are but saw then at Hillsborough River SP this week.