The texture of Angus's face

PixelRabbit · Feb 24, 2012

I have been working on finding textures in nature. Angus has a very detailed coat, stripes, shapes, colours. I find that some of his beautiful details are lost ...well... in the details.

I found him watching the birds and catching some nice light.

I wanted to isolate his face and show the texture as well as the colour of his nose and this is what I came up with.
C&C always welcome

Thanks for taking a look!

bazooka · Feb 24, 2012

Excellent! I love that the whiskers point toward the eyes which are also lined up with the ears, creating a diagonal through the square frame. It's a very natural and pleasing composition, but not boring. Also, the eyes have plenty of room to look into. And the that gentle kiss of light... just enought to make the eyes pop with tone and color.

You've earned my second Feb photo of the month nomination. Funny, the first one is of a cat as well...

KenC · Feb 24, 2012

Very nice. I like the light around both eyes, even though you can't really see the left one.

paigew · Feb 24, 2012

beautiful!

480sparky · Feb 24, 2012

Sparky like!

PixelRabbit · Feb 24, 2012

Wow Bazooka, I'm taken aback a bit here ( in a good way

) Thank you!

PixelRabbit · Feb 24, 2012

Thanks Ken, Paige and Sparky

Joey_Ricard · Feb 24, 2012

I haven't really followed your postings, after your initial posts meaning I saw some of your earlier images (don't take that personally), but you did really well here.

Joel_W · Feb 24, 2012

What an excellent photograph. And those eyes, what a great capture. One just gets the sense of his focus and intensity.

bazooka · Feb 24, 2012

Joey_Ricard said:
I haven't really followed your postings, after your initial posts meaning I saw some of your earlier images (don't take that personally), but you did really well here.

She has come a long way in a short amount of time.

One more thing I wanted to make note of that I was impressed by with your photo. The subtle light around the edge of the ears is just enough to give them a definite form, but not enought to distract from the eyes.

Derrel · Feb 24, 2012

Nice shot! I HAD TYPED OUT a really lengthy C&C on this...and then I clicked accidentally, and LOST IT ALL! ACK!!!!!!!! Dang it!!! Anway,sigh, I like the shot. I had a big,long description, but my suggestion is this, in a nutshell: love the low-key, but thing it needs to be re-cropped a bit, with less top space, maybe a bit more bottom space, and maybe a little off the left hand side. The picture's fundamentally sound, but the cat's EXACT positioning within the frame is not quite right for absolutely MAXIMUM impact...

(New progressive lenses making typing a royal "snitch" for me...")

PixelRabbit · Feb 24, 2012

Derrel said:
Nice shot! I HAD TYPED OUT a really lengthy C&C on this...and then I clicked accidentally, and LOST IT ALL! ACK!!!!!!!! Dang it!!! Anway,sigh, I like the shot. I had a big,long description, but my suggestion is this, in a nutshell: love the low-key, but thing it needs to be re-cropped a bit, with less top space, maybe a bit more bottom space, and maybe a little off the left hand side. The picture's fundamentally sound, but the cat's EXACT positioning within the frame is not quite right for absolutely MAXIMUM impact...

(New progressive lenses making typing a royal "snitch" for me...")

Thank you Derrel! I'm sorry you lost the C&C, that is so frustrating after investing your time, I thank you for doing it even if I didn't get to see it all.

I applied your suggestions on the crop as best I could with what I had, it was shot in portrait and relatively tight. What an amazing difference!! ... when I flip back and forth between the two on Flickr I see the "tension" in him immediately in the second crop.

Because I see such a difference between the two I still like the original crop, it has a more peaceful feel to it for me whereas the second conveys his attention on the birds MUCH better

Before

After

PixelRabbit · Feb 24, 2012

Drats actually I didn't follow perfectly, I added what space I had remaining on the right side back in and you didn't mention that.

Joel_W · Feb 24, 2012

I like the moving to the left side so that some of of that dead space is gone, but the exposure seems under exposed and soft now. I much prefer the original exposure.