• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

Not sure about these....

Bill Graham

New member
Hello to all!

I'm a new member and ran across Asher's post in the Layback Cafe about needing images in all the forums, so I thought I'd offer these.

Do you ever get a song in your head that you can't shake? The kind that keeps popping up all day, no matter how trite or inane it may be? These photos have been my personal "song of the day", on and off, every time I run across them. So I've added them to my "Selects" collection in Lightroom, figuring if they keep coming back maybe they're not so bad after all.

First:

2073300-R1-020-8A_01.jpg


Another:

2073300-R1-024-10A.jpg


And the last:

_D3C0144-2-Edit.jpg


A little background: My usual practice when I get a new camera is to take it out in the backyard and shoot with it a while, winding up with a lot of dull images but a good idea of what the camera is capable of doing. The first two images were from my F100, back in February when it first arrived. Technically, they're pretty bad, having been shot on Kodak ISO400 consumer film and translated into low-res scans by the local Wolf's. The third image is from my new D300, technically speaking,a lot better in quality.

I have a bird feeder in the back yard but it mostly attracts small, skittish birds so I've never gotten a typical wildlife shot from it, despite a lot of exposures. I also have a large fig tree which the birds love. The last two shots were of birds in the fig tree, taken 9 months apart but remarkably similar in exposure and composition.

As wildlife photos, they're abysmal, period. No details, underexposed, no feathers you can see, etc.. The subjects are all in the center of the image, which I'm well aware is a big no-no, the photos are grainy and focus is questionable. I have no particular investment in any of them, they were all just quick shots taken to test a piece of gear.

But for some reason, I like them all. I've printed the third shot and been very happy with the print at 13x19. I'm thinking I need to have some high-res scans done of the first two and print them large as well.

So I'm asking for your opinions. What do you think? Have any suggestions for cropping, PP, printing, whatever? Or just delete them and be done with it all.....

TIA for your input,

Bill
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Welcome Bill!

Thanks for bravely thrusting this dilemma at us! I think there are reasons we like such images. However, here I just want to greet you, thank you for joining us and then step back for others to post comments.

These are 4 interesting images. Let's see what people come up with!

Asher
 

Maria Lawson

New member
Hello Bill!
I am a new member as well! I really like the 2nd picture the best. It is as if the bird is hidden in the center because I didnt even notice it until I looked at it closely. I like the lines that are created from the branches too it almost seems to draw my eye away from the bird then back to it. I also kind of like the three thick branches. It gives me a reaching feeling that I image a tree to have. The out of focus branches adds an interesting DOF to the silhouette you created. I don't know what to say about the first one, but just that I wasn't drawn to it out of the three. I do think it is a nice difference next to the busy branches though. To me the third one seems very cyan-ish in color. I think I would like it better if I could see more of the side of the bird too, and not just the underneath. I am impressed with all three for being just quick shots in the back yard! I am not sure I could have captured that lonely winter-ish mood that I get from them.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
One at a time. We can enter this critique with your first image which may be beautiful once worked on a little.

For this, would you consider keeping the curved metal on which the bird rests and removing the incomplete bird feeder? That IMHO, might be impressive. The OOF b.g. is beautiful and isolates the simple structure of the lone bird which is an empathetic representation of the individual.

Actually I think all the iamges are demanding to you because of this quality of representing the lone creature, perhaps you or a close friend. That the other pictures do not show a defined bird, is not then important as it is now sheltered by the complex branches and twigs of the olive tree. In fact now that's it! We have unifying idea that one could obsess on! :)
 

Bill Graham

New member
Thanks to you both for the comments and suggestions. I went back to the original folder and found a crop of the first photo that I had forgotten about and cleaned it up a little:

2073300-R1-020-8A-Edit-2.jpg


The composition is a little more conventional in this version, but it's bordering on becoming a bad wildlife photo, at least to my eye.

Looking back at the original, I found I liked having the tree on the right. So I did a quick crop and came up with this:

2073300-R1-020-8A-Edit.jpg


I'm not familiar enough with PS to clone out the feeder hanger in the second image but it would be an improvement. I think this version retains more of the "aloneness" feeling Asher expressed, at least to me.

I've printed both, I'll thumbtack them to a wall somewhere and look at them for a few days. Now I'm off to find the negatives and get better scans......

Thanks again for taking the time to help,

Bill
 
Top