Took this image at Tiger Tail Beach, Marco Island, FL. It's quite an adventure to get to this skimmer colony, but well worth it IMO. This is my first skimmer posting. Skimmers fly fast and can turn on a dime and, thus, I found them challenging to shoot at relatively close range. This one passed 26 ft (abt 8 mts) from me.
I was surprised to see the raised head feathers on this bird.
D3S, 70-200 f/2.8 + 2.0 TC (400mm), HH
ISO 1000 f/8 1/2000
PP in CS5 & Nik
About 20% crop on right and added some canvas on the other three sides for composition.
Hi. Nice sharpness and exposure. Square formats occasionally work, especially with diagonal elements, but with a bird flying horizontally rarely anything but a horizontal format. Subjects tend to make vertical or horizontal format decisions pretty easy, a tall bird standing upright naturally indicates a vertical format for example. In other words if you subject wider than tall; horizontal, taller than wide; vertical.There are advantages to both horizontal or vertical formats as well. For example vertical tends to narrow the field of vision to concentrate more on the subject. Sometimes the subject is roughly the same in width and height, and you could go square, but you loose any advantages that either V or H format may bring to the image.
My 2 cents. regards~Bill
Thanks, Ian and William. I, too find the multi-color BG pleasing. Also, I initially thought of doing a Landscape composition, but as I worked on the image I found myself leaning more and more toward a squarish composition. I like rules almost as much as I like to break them! A few weks ago Al Forns posted an image that purposely broke a bunch of rules, which I found quite refreshing and stimulating. That is how you push the envelope!! As another example, I posted a GBH (Toreador), about a month ago, whose eye I placed precisely in the center of the frame, deliberately disregarding the ROT (which I love). Though I may not always succeed, I enjoy experimenting. Thanks, William, for your thought-provoking comments. RR
This one is different and interesting You traded the pano look to accentuate the bg colors .... good eye and works for me !! .. about all that would make it better is having he wing totally straight up !!! Doing well !!!
Hi Ricardo, Visually the image is appealing cropped in that fashion. The vertical lines,while very noticeable, their pastel qualities are appealing. Good average exposure and detail in the darks.
Rules(or as I call them guidelines) if followed will make one a better photographer. Guidelines are broken all the time with varying results and one can laud a photographer for making an attempt at an unorthodox approach as long as they are aware of the basics...
Ricardo; I see where you are coming from and that this was an educated decision, and I thought I might further elaborate on the theme. My idea is that rules or "guidelines" can indeed be broken, but I would contend that there should be overriding reasons to do so, and not just for the sake of breaking the rules. In this image I see that the inclusion of the multicolored background was a darn good reason to do so, and I'm good with it. regards~Bill
Hi Al, Dave, William, and Harshad. Nice discussion on when to break the rules. I fully agree that before breaking the rules you must be aware of them. Al, I agree on the wing problem but the strong elements prevailed in my mind. BTW, Al posted another rule-breaker today... love it.
Congrats Ricardo. I like it as presented and I'm glad you decided to break the rule for this one as the BG and colors from it makes the image stand out.
Regards,
Skimmer
