Lifeline

nynfortoo · May 10, 2008

This'll be my first photo for critque/comments, but by all means don't go easy. I'll try to take all things constructive on board.

Took a while to decide on the right cropping. There's almost the entire adult elephant in the original shot, as well as a fair amount of water below-left; I wanted to focus the attention on the relationship between the adult and baby, so chose to crop just after the adult's head, using its trunk to lead in to the young'un.

It might be a bit busy I'm not too sure; and I can't critique my own work after staring at it for too long.

Cheers, guys.

Wyjid · May 11, 2008

that's interesting. what shutter speed did you use? slow enough to blur the water but fast enough to freeze the elephants. they must have been quite still. and i love elephants... so this wins. perhaps more contrast, but i'm crazy like that.

nynfortoo · May 12, 2008

Wyjid said:
that's interesting. what shutter speed did you use? slow enough to blur the water but fast enough to freeze the elephants. they must have been quite still. and i love elephants... so this wins. perhaps more contrast, but i'm crazy like that.

Thanks for commenting. It was taken at 1/25sec at f/8, ISO 100 hand-held at 55mm.

I usually love punchy contrast, but it didn't quite work on this image.

Sidewinder · May 12, 2008

I love the shot as much as I love elephants, they are amongst the greatest animals on this planet.
But they shouldn't be kept in zoos, elephants are wild animals, they walk miles and miles each day, they need the freedom and vast spaces of the savannah.
Unfortunately, I just read an article that the wild elephants are being hunted down again, the number of killed elephants has been increasing over the last years.

Great photograph!

nynfortoo · May 12, 2008

Sidewinder said:
I love the shot as much as I love elephants, they are amongst the greatest animals on this planet.
But they shouldn't be kept in zoos, elephants are wild animals, they walk miles and miles each day, they need the freedom and vast spaces of the savannah.
Unfortunately, I just read an article that the wild elephants are being hunted down again, the number of killed elephants has been increasing over the last years.

Great photograph!

Thanks, Sidewinder, and I couldn't agree more. It had been a long time since I'd been to a zoo, and I'd forgotten how bored and depressed the animals looked; the rhinos especially, as such:

It does pain me to see animals looking so down, as the proud keeper of many animals during my so-far short life. And it pains me to see people taking pleasure in seeing them locked up in these states.

Senor Hound · May 12, 2008

Your last photo makes me cry. In that respect I'd say its a great shot (definitely getting emotion from it).

What would happen if you cropped out some of the bottom straw in it, though? I can't really tell since I have to scroll (messes with the flow), but if you don't have a problem with it, then it should be left as is.

nynfortoo · May 13, 2008

Senor Hound said:
Your last photo makes me cry. In that respect I'd say its a great shot (definitely getting emotion from it).

What would happen if you cropped out some of the bottom straw in it, though? I can't really tell since I have to scroll (messes with the flow), but if you don't have a problem with it, then it should be left as is.

Sad, isn't it :thumbdown:

I'll have a look at cropping it when I get home tonight. I used my browser window to cut it off, and the crop works, compositionally as far as I'm concerned; whether or not it is better than how it is now, though, I'll have to give more thought.

Cheers for commenting.

Also, I should probably not size all my web images to have their greatest dimension 1024px if I'm going to post them on a forum. I'll keep that one in mind from now on.