What Lies Beneath

[Julie Kenward]

Made this image today while out walking around a local lake. Part of the ice is getting thin from our short spell of warmer temps and these bubbles were just below the surface waiting to pop back out.

The yellow beneath half the image is a bright yellow leaf down beneath the bubbles...the lake is only about a foot deep at this edge.

Oh, I know the bubbles aren't perfectly in focus but it wasn't the me or the camera. With that ice on top they are rather muted and abstract looking...it wasn't camera shake, I swear!

Canon 40D, EF 70-200mm f/4L
F11 @ 1/80th, ISO 400
Manual mode, pattern metering, AWB
hand held, natural overcast light
Processed in ACR and CS4. I did darken the contrast and the blue part of the BG. Small crop. Some sharpening applied as well.

[Tony Whitehead]

Well spotted, Julie. There is an amazing feeling of depth in this image - I would crop the bubbles from the top of the image to give a clear black upper border as I think this adds to the perception of depth and distance. Quite intriguing.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Julie ...I agree with Tony about cropping down from the top. Makes the image alot stronger! Good eye!

[Anita Bower]

Jules: Looks like a miniature world. I like the colors very much.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Wouldn't have had a clue what is was Julie unless you had pointed it out. Think I like the idea of bubble removal from the top. Thought it was a bunch of amoebas flating around. Love the blues and golds together.

[Julie Kenward]

Here's the new crop. You all convinced me to cut the top off. ;)

[Tony Whitehead]

The crop I had in mind was a little less severe, Jules. I like the bubbles top left that just seem to disappear into the distance. To test this type of thing I find it useful to just scroll the browser window to hide a little bit of the top of the image. The same works for crops from the bottom (side crops are less easy to test quickly onscreen)

[Anita Bower]

I like Tony's crop best. I think it focuses our eyes on the lovely shapes and colors of the bubbles, and let's them fade away into the distance.