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View Full Version : Mating Heart Shaped Damselflies



Ken_Bower
08-11-2010, 06:30 PM
I shot this in a very small tributary off of the CT River in VT, in a swampy area that held a lot of dragonflies and damselflies.

Shot with a Canon 50D, Canon 180mm f3.5 macro; 1/500, f9, ISO 800, hand held, evaluative metering.

http://www.ken-bower.com/uploads/mating_damsel.jpg

Jay Sheinfield
08-12-2010, 04:19 AM
Ken

what a beauty.......great detail all the way through. Pose is terrific. Colors and BG all work together. If it were mine I might position the "heart" a bit higher in the frame (bit off the top) but its hard to tell since I can't get the entire frame on my screen (vertical pano?)............no matter, I like it as is. Great shot!

Jim Bridges
08-12-2010, 06:56 AM
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Anita Bower
08-12-2010, 08:14 AM
Lovely colors and composition. Beautiful bg. The suggestion to take a bit off the top is a good one. Nice job.

Ken Childs
08-12-2010, 09:39 AM
Ken, this is a very nice capture. The colors are good and the wings look great. I agree that a slice off the top would help and there are a few parts of the BG that could use smoothing out, especially that black spot to the right of the female.

Ken_Bower
08-12-2010, 12:15 PM
Thanks for the comments! I think I will take a bit off the top and fix the BG spot to the right of the female. I use LR3 and CS4 to process my images. What would you suggest to fix the dark spot? just blur it or use the clone tool?

Ken Childs
08-12-2010, 12:31 PM
Maybe both. Clone it away and then if necessary to make the blend more convincing, blur the area.

Roman Kurywczak
08-12-2010, 01:15 PM
Hey Ken,
Excellent advice given above......I'm all for the crop and blotch removal.....patch tool works well too. I do think this is a VG comp (debated CCW rotation to get rid of dark green of leaf).....the light /story/Bg all come together to make this an excellent image!

Steve Maxson
08-12-2010, 03:39 PM
A nice one, Ken. I like the behavior you captured and good job getting both sharp. Looks like they both have an ample supply of parasitic mites attached to their abdomens. I like the comp, as presented, though I would agree with cleaning up the background a bit. Well done.

Julie Kenward
08-12-2010, 06:15 PM
Kudos from me as well. Also a vote for less on top and a bit of smoothing to take this to its full potential. Very nice!

Jonathan Ashton
08-13-2010, 04:30 AM
I think it is a great shot, for my taste I think the blacks are a little heavy and the green is a little heavy too, maybe the black slider at RAW conversion was just a little too high? I know this is personal preference so you may disagree entirely.;)