The Tyger and the Kite

[Bend The Light]

I entered an online competition, the subject being B&W and so I played a while and came up with these from my trip to the Wildlife Park. I would like your comments on these (even though I have entered them anyway).

Any comments welcome


Black kite 2 by http://bendthelight.me.uk, on Flickr


tyger 2 by http://bendthelight.me.uk, on Flickr

 

[Forkie]

Wow. The kite is something special! Not sure I like the square (ish) framing, but the bird itself looks stunning - nice and sharp! Since he's looking down and to the left (bird's right), I'd've had him in the top right of the frame with a more conventional ratio.

The tiger shot is nice, but doesn't do a lot for me. I generally find shots of the big cats rather boring unless they are doing something like yawning, they're in a particularly interesting setting, or the shot has a particular artistic uniqueness. I might have been tempted to crop right in to his face and have his stripes fill the frame.

Perhaps something along these lines (although I'd probably do it a bit better than this!):



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Bend The Light]

Wow. The kite is something special! Not sure I like the square (ish) framing, but the bird itself looks stunning - nice and sharp! Since he's looking down and to the left (bird's right), I'd've had him in the top right of the frame with a more conventional ratio.

The tiger shot is nice, but doesn't do a lot for me. I generally find shots of the big cats rather boring unless they are doing something like yawning, they're in a particularly interesting setting, or the shot has a particular artistic uniqueness. I might have been tempted to crop right in to his face and have his stripes fill the frame.

Perhaps something along these lines (although I'd probably do it a bit better than this!):



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Thanks for that, appreciate it. The bird shot didn't have much else, it's not cropped much, although given the sky is whiteout anyway, I could easily add some. To be honest, I was going square to "echo" the squareness of the wingset.

I like the crop of the tiger, and I agree about the "doing something"...where these are, they don't do a lot just yet, but they are new, and need to settle in. I will be going back, however, so watch this space!

Cheers

 

[Forkie]

I see what you mean about the squareness of the wings. By what you're saying, perhaps you went for the best option after all.

I don't think I've ever seen a big cat do anything exciting at a zoo! They are of course, beautiful, but the animals alone don't make for great photos unfortunately! I was at a zoo myself last week and they had a pride of lions and unfortunately they were sitting slightly below the ground line of a hill in the paddock, so couldn't get a full shot of any of them. I did manage to get a nice shot of two with their backs to me - I liked the "symmetry" of them both looking in the same direction:


Lions by Forkie, on Flickr

But the tigers were asleep, so I didn't even bother! The hardest part at the zoo is making the animals look like they're not in the zoo! Any shots with fencing in that can't be cloned out gets binned!


Edit: Just had a look at your Flickr, you have a great shot of a zebra, and a really nice wingspread of a Harris Hawk which could do with some playing with! I'd clone that tree stump out, then you'd have it "in-flight" with a hard bank left!

You're certainly going in the right direction with your wildlife shots. With a bit of processing, some of them could be awesome!