Snapping Turtle

[Rachel Farquhar]

This is a picture I took last summer. This turtle was found near a bicycle path. The picture was taken using my D90, 70-300mm @ 143mm, ISO 200, ss 1/160, and f/4.5. I cropped and darkened some distracting highlights on the shell and face.

[Julie Kenward]

Rachel, good to see you posting! I like this very much. I want to offer a few suggestions both for when you are in the field and in post processing:

First, waiting for the turtle to raise his head up would have made this even stronger. As he is here you have a nice view of his eye (and that's always important) but you are missing a lot of the detail in the face that could add a lot of interest as well. Also, try to get in the habit of having the sun at your back if you can so the shadows don't fall so heavily on your subject. Last, watch those foreground (FG) elements - try to get the camera high enough that they don't blur out the lower frame edge.

I took this into PS and used the burn and dodge tools to bring out the shadows and pull down the highlights a bit so it looked more evenly lit. I also cloned over those places in the FG where the grass was blurry so they would not distract the viewer's eye as much. I then toned down the yellows in the grass with a hue/saturation layer and then added a bit more green to the grass there as well. This helps make the overly bright sun not so harsh in that area. Finally, I cloned over the grass pieces that were on his head - that's really the call of the photographer, though. I do it because I want the viewer to see the face better but some like the image to be more "au natural" and that's fine as well - your choice.

Here's what I came up with - just a few small tweaks and I think it takes your nice image up another notch. Take or leave the suggestions - it's your vision and your call!