Level With You

[Austin Greene]

Got out to experiment some more today with the new backpack and spotted this juvenile Western Fence Lizard. I often kneel or sit for low angle shots, but this guy was so small it called for a full prone shooting position. Got to snap off two or three quick frames before he flew the coop.


1. Overall happy with the DOF and composition.

Level With You by TogaLive, on Flickr


Keep Shooting!

Toga

 

[Austin Greene]

Well, no one's commented, so I'll assume its either A) decently good or B) so horribly bad that those 65 people who've viewed it thus far all lost their lives to massive sudden onsets of physiologically damaging depression.

I'm hoping its A?

 

[Jaemie]

It's good! And I think you've got enough detail in the 2048 Flickr version to crop it close and show off that splendid patch of blue under the lizard's neck, like this:



I cropped it a bit too close to the right foot, imo, but I was trying to crop out as much of that twig as possible. I suppose you could clone it out, too. And ya, I know, rule of thirds... meh...

 

[Skyclad]

Something like this maybe?

 

[Skyclad]

Or if you want Rule of Thirds

 

[camerateur]

or ..

 

[camerateur]

haha so many ways to crop!

 

[Jaemie]

Or if you want Rule of Thirds

Hey, you got rid of the twig! Nice.

 

[Austin Greene]

Thanks for the interesting crops, I wasn't expecting that Of course CC is always appreciated! For the most part I am quite happy with the current crop since I prefer leaving plenty of room for the subject to "breathe." Still, camerateur I think your second crop does quite a good job, I'll have it investigate it a bit

Also, just as a side note. I'm not saying RoT doesn't have its place, it is a useful tool that can be used to easily capture the viewers eye, but it most definitely doesn't solely dictate composition, and in many cases can do more damage than good if strictly adhered to. Now with that said, TPF loves its RoT, but thats mainly because of the number of new photographers we see who have no compositional knowledge at all. Ask a professional and its a very different story. In fact, when I recently asked a Nat Geo Photographer who is a close friend of mine, he referred to the RoT as "downright silly."

I'm not bashing anyone or anything, but I thought since it came up I'd put the importance of RoT into perspective

 

[Frequency]

Good image

keep aside all rules and govern things by your aesthetics....
Even then i feel that if a person is photographed up to his knee, it would look awkward; Up to shoulder (1/4), up to waste line (1/2) or complete (1/1)...but up to knee (3/4) would be disturbing....

Here i feel avoiding the tail alone gives a feeling of 3/4th, but not as disturbing as in the case of human figure... so i liked trim up to nearly middle, especially that by skyclad