Silent Vigil

[Jay Gould]

Shot while Zodiak cruising at Paulette Is., Antarctica.

Camera: 7D
Capture date/time: 16 Jan 10; 10:42AM
Light condition: sunny
Lens: 70-200 f/4
Focal length: 98
Extender: 1.4x
Distance: .670m
Tube: none
Flash/Comp: no
ISO: 200
Exp Prog: Av
Speed: 1/640 sec
Aperture: f/14
Exp Comp: +1 1/3
Metering: Partial
WB: Auto
AF Drive: AI Servo
Tripod: no
Filter: None
Crop: minimal
Image Changes: Added catchlight
Processed in LR 3 (beta) and then CS4 - plus Topaz Suite and Pixel Genius Sharpening.
All C&Cs gratefully appreciated!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Jay, Another interesting image. I like the fact that you isolated one penguin and created a composition from it.
I felt there was a bit more information that was needed and wanted to emphasize the penguin more. I cropped the image leaving a small amount of foreground on the lower right. The heavily shaded area on the bottom I cropped most of it out and filled(cloned) in the rest. I felt that the dark area competed with the penguin for attention. Another way of looking at it...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Jay,
I see your travels are going nicely when I was away in Tanzania! Very nice isolating the penguin and good job holding the ice exposure also. I like the OP but agree with Dave that the darker areas do draw the eye a bit from the penguin as did the ice line......leading me to the right. Yet another option in my repost.....more to a pano. I think all 3 have merit......so nice luxury to have!
Continued succes on your travels and added bonus points for a very nice image from a moving zodiac!!!

[Jay Gould]

Hi Guys, you are right; so many ways to look at the same image.

The beauty of BPN - if I wasn't an LTM I would become one - is that the two you, each Photography Master Professionals, are willing to take the time to not just comment, you are willing to take the time to do all that is necessary to put your thoughts into a repost. Thank you.

Now to the two images.

My first reaction was that I liked Dave's repost because it showed more of the ice. And, Dave, your thoughts gave me the idea of how I would process in the future; I would lighten the dark areas.

I have kept a list of all of my posts because sometime towards the end of this year I am going to open my own image website - Luvntravln's Luvn Images - and I plan to reprocess those images I want to post. Hopefully, by then, I will have learned enough of the ins and outs of PS with everyones' help including Artie's two books and Robert's CDs, so that final images will be a lot better than what I am now producing.

Anyway, taking a second look at the images I also very much like Roman's RP because, fortunately, you both left the sky alone. The penguin looking towards the sky on the smaller amount of ice also creates the feel I wanted to convey. Silent Vigil; Alone; Alone on a Frozen Wasteland; etc.

If the penguin was looking at me it would not work; the penguin probably with a HA of a couple of degrees away from the plane (oh oh here comes the HA police! :p) creates the necessary mood.

Thanks again. :D

[Harold Davis]

jay, i loved this the first time i looked at it!! i think roman's repost is the perfect compostion, but there was something else that i thought would make it even better. i took it into Ps and used the low key filter in nik color efex pro at ~25% strength to make it a little darker and give it a mood of desolation. i also multiplied the highlights at 18% opacity. it's just different and one person's vision. we all differ!!

[Harold Davis]

i didnt realize that roman had already done much of the same that i did, and for some reason, the color in the bg changed when i saved for web.

[Harshad Barve]

My vote for Roman's repost , Beautiful image made excellent by experts
TFS

[Robert Amoruso]

Roman did exactly what I was going to suggest Jay. I would try a reverse s-curve to tame contrast some.

[Dennis "Curly" Buchner]

very nice Jat