I spent a very nice afternoon yesterday photographing at the Albuquerque Biopark with Artie, Linda Robbins, and an IPT group. The weather couldn't have been nicer. I photographed this Hooded Merganser doing a wing flap in some pretty nice light. My question for you all is: does the OOF Wood Duck enhance or detract from the image. I could have cloned him out, but I kind of like the way he's checking out the Merganser. I'd appreciate some feedback from the BPN community!
Canon 1D Mark III, 500mm, f/7.1, 1/2000, ISO 640, no flash, hand held
OK Doug, I don't comment much because I really don't feel quite qualified, but your comments have always helped to improve my photography (much appreciated); so here goes. If you could move the Woodie up and to the left, it would work for me. As is, he seems to crowd the main subject.
Thanks for the response David! I thought about doing exactly what you suggested. Here's a follow-up question. Is that amount of image manipulation going too far?
As you probabaly know, I meant up and to the right (looking at the image). I agree with what Artie often states, If it doesn't alter the natural history(?) of the moment, I'm OK with it. You would have to shrink the OOF duck, the further you move up or back for correct perspective.
I would personally prefer with no Wood Duck at all. The merganser was taken at the perfect moment and feel the duck's presence only takes away from it. Aren't Mallards supposed to be the ones in the way?? :-)
I am for no Woodie. But removing it might break the image and make the crop to tight. I personally would just take another image and trash this one. Not that it is a bad image Doug. I just do not Photo Shop my images to that extent. But it is yours and not mine. And what you want to do is up to you. I had to re-write this response several times because I wanted it to come across the right way, respectfully and not sound off base. Thanks for asking Doug.
Last edited by Grady Weed; 02-23-2009 at 01:05 PM.
Moving the Wood Duck is, I think, the least desirable and most unsalvageable (not to mention that it bothers my ethics). Moving the wood duck up to the upper right corner is almost the same as removing it but worse because you can’t tighten the crop now. Its sight line and bill only barely contribute to redirecting the viewer back to the Merganser, and only then coincidentally. In the original position it was clearly looking at the Merganser—maybe wondering why this idiot was trying to be all big and bad or something—but in the new position it’s now looking at something off the left side of the canvas.
Behaviorally I’m not expecting this to be about flight or taking of, but bathing or otherwise a display motion (i.e. something more social in nature). I’m not expecting the Merganser to move across the whole frame. That leads me to follow sight lines into the blank space instead of perceive motion, and that results in my eye going off to open water and getting stuck there. For a display behavior shot, I would expect one of two things, either a directly connected audience showing the social nature of the behavior, or a tighter crop focusing specifically on the nuance of the behavior itself. Disconnecting the wood duck doesn’t help the social message, and not removing it prevents the tighter crop necessary for the nuance shot.
Removing the wood duck is more salvageable than moving it. The crop can then be made tighter and shifting focus to the behavior of the Merganser and not the performance as a whole. Removing the canvas to the right makes the eye, head feathers and wings a stronger focal point and diminishes the effect of the sight and bill lines leading your eye off into nowhere. You hit the edge of the frame and quickly go back to the Merganser because it’s close. I find the longer a sight line is, the more weight I lend to it, simply because it’s further and harder to backtrack back to the source.
The image as presented, I think, works the best. The wood duck in the background is low enough that the sight line from the merganser intersects it, and its sight line redirects the eye back to the merganser. It’s OOF enough not to compete as the subject, but in focus enough that we can tell what it’s looking at. It makes a nice little visual loop, going from the performer to the audience and back to the performer, and keeping the in the center of the frame where the action and subjects are and producing some visual dialog.
I find I have a hard time looking away from the merganser in this version and when I do, I’m quickly directed back to it; in the moved version I end up looking at the empty water a lot.
Hi Doug, I think if instead of a wood duck, the blurred image was a female Hoodie, it might work, I proabably flip it so both ducks would be facing the same way....having said that I am for no Wood Duck. Very nice capture...
Another vote for no WD as I think it draws attention from the merganser which is outstanding. The ripples around the bird suggest that some CCW rotation might be appropriate.
Thanks everyone for the feedback! I'll try to find the time this evening to do a high-quality clone job. The first repost used only the 200 KB JPEG for source material.
Hoodie Wing Flap: Opinions Wanted!
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