"Gaia's Parthenon"
Mark IV 600/4 1/1000@f8 ISO 500
Originally I called this shot "Time to Turn" as this guy was chasing another heron and went right up to the falls before turning. But after seeing the "columns" of water, and how they seemed similar to columns say on the Parthenon in Athens, but natures own rendition in this case, I renamed it to "Gaia's Parthenon"---which may not be as evident in this no. 3 cropped composition as it is in nos. 1 and 2 which I hope to post later as they are finished. The entire scene is a stitch job of about six full frames depicting the entire scene before me, and after cropping for this composition, wound up with an area roughly 15 percent larger than a full frame shot. Whats nice is I am able to pull what I feel is four strong comps from the exact same stitched panoramic. But this one is something that comes close to a type of comp that I have wanted to use in a shot for a long time that is very different, and very strong. The inspiration came from this image by Pieter de Hooch (Who????) hee-hee..:
http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/timage_f?ob ... 432&c=gg51
I love the strong building wall as a balance element taking up the entire right side of the frame, and in my image here, the stone on the right does the same. In fact all I had to do was to add or crop off stone to allow whatever amount I needed to achieve balance opposing the left side. Very nice to have those options available. In another image scenario, a huge tree trunk is another possibility for this type of a strategy. At any rate I have always loved that painting by Hooch and It's always been on my mind when going out in the field looking for compositions. The little girl standing so disciplined, shy, and obedient and adds such a powerful feeling to it all. She's pretty much seeming to be a minor player at first,but after a minute her sweetness grows on you heart exponentially. The use of an open area of sky in diagonal opposition spots to her her smallness augments how petite she is even more. I wasn't able to come up with a similar element in my image to use because nature is what nature is. But when I saw that powerful boulder the size of a house on the right, I was hoping something would happen and it did--but only after three days of shooting.
I wanted to post this one first and because I'm eager to see how others felt about the comp. The other two renditions(1&2) are simpler and not as involved.
Sky conditions were very cloudy --so soft light. The temptation usually it seems is to add contrast on the bird to make it pop, but I felt I would loose too much of that soft light feel if I did that.
This one was intended all the way to be blown up big and put to canvas. I hesitate to post such images because no way can you achieve that same feel and look on a site using a small jpg. So you have to use a little imagination I guess.
What do you think?
Paul
Gaia--from the ancient Mycenaean mythology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_%28mythology%29
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Originally Posted by John Chardine
