my sis and I came upon this snake during a walk in the woods this fall. It would have been rather comical if anyone could have seen me trying to get this photo! This snake was right in the middle of the path we were on. The path was _maybe_ 2 1/2 feet wide with a very deep steep ravine on one side, and nearly vertical hillside on the other side. In order to get a face image of the snake, I had to climb the hill side, get past my sis, and her two of-leash hyperactive lap dogs, and then ahead of the snake. Eventually I did get to where I wanted to be. It was a rather slow but hilarious process, which was not being helped by my sis telling me to hurry and her trying to keep her dogs from scaring the snake away. I was surprised the snake hadn't left the scene by the time I made my way to the front of the column. lol
I knew I wanted to lay on the ground to get the photo, so the lack of a tripod didn't worry me as much as how close I had to be to the snake! I think the snake must have been cold and thus sluggish since it stayed in place long enough for all of this commotion and for me to get several images, including one image of one of the little dogs totally oblivious to the fact that it had just stepped right on top of a snake!
The image does have the entire body of the snake, but I thought the face was more interesting.
Here it looks like I might have added too much contrast. I would love to hear your thoughts on this image.
Thanks for your time and consideration!!
Hi Cheryl,
I like the capture, and the details and texture of your subject. Ideally you want to get the eye a little more to the right; conforming to the rule of thirds...nice capture and good story...:cool:
Gus, I knew the eye should be more to the right, but there was a leaf in the coil which would then show in the image. I thought it was distracting. would it be better to move the eye? or leave out the leaf?
that guy looks scared!!!! or cold. i like the repost. it tells the story better than the first one i think. one of the better snake images i have seen. it's actually quite comical to me! only suggestion i would give you is to possibly try to lighten the facial/eye area.
Thanks, Harold. You can tell that from its body position?? I bet the snake was more scared than cold, even though it was not a warm day. Just way too much yelling, too many feet and commotion for a poor snake. It soon did get enough courage to slither away down the ravine.
hmmm, it seems when I try to be "creative" with an image, I usually go the wrong way!! lol
So here's another thread where I should have switched the post and repost around. :D
Hi Cheryl. I like your first post, but I agree that the eye should be to the right a bit. In my repost of your first post, I took your second post and quick masked out the leaf that was bothering you and the rock to the left of the snakes head. Then, I cropped down to aproximately what your crop achieved but putting the eye to the right a bit. Then, I selectively sharpened the head and a few areas that looked to me to be in the plane of your focus, but the large crop hurt the sharpeness quite a bit. I'm liken it now though:D, but I also really like snakes:D
I like the crop better in your repost, Dan. I think I would crop off some from the bottom. don't need all that OOF stuff there for me. VERY nice job on removing items! I need more work on that....
i think dan nailed it with the dof. maybe it's the big oof part of the body that stares you right in the face in the middle of the frame that is distracting. but i'm not quite sure if you could have done much better in that department.
Hi Cheryl
I love the story, and much of this image is wonderful.
Hope this doesn't all sound too grouchy. The problem for me in all the various crops is the oof part of the snake. The head is the exciting part of the image and having the head entwined in the rest of the body is perfection. For me though, in all the images my eye goes to the head and then is pulled back to the oof part of the snake and I get stuck there, staring at the oof section of the body.
I have ton of such images that I ought to trash but keep saving them because part of the image is so perfect (at least to me). So I'll keep them until I get the good one.
Cheers
Gail
Something to think about if presented with a situation like this snake again is, if the subject (snake or whatever) is holding still, one could do a set of shots, (a tripod helps alot:D) starting with the point of focus at the forground or the front of the subject, shoot, then focus a little deeper, shoot, focus deeper, shoot and so on until one has a set of images to use as a "stack". Then, with software such as "CombineZM" blend the set into one totally "in focus" end product. This type of thing has it's own set of problems, but what it allows you to do is shoot at a wider aperture/faster shutter speed and then end up with much more DOF than the wide aperture of one shot will produce. It's fun too:D:D
Great replies guys !!!!! ..... but were is the image of Cheryl while stocking the snake .... that would have been the one Did anyone else have a camera :)
snake
