This was the first book I thought of--wonderful book. If you haven't read it, you should.
Wanted to do "something wicked this way comes", but that shoot didn't work out. Was tempted to use this shot for it, but I figured it wouldn't go over well (but I like the shot!)
Tried doing "I have no mouth but I must scream". bought stuff to make face putty. That didn't work. Printed out skin colored paper and tried attaching it to my husband's face over his mouth. didn't work. (Even bought foundation makeup that matched his skin and everything!) Gave up on that idea.
Perfect idea--"The Invisible Man". Tried stuffing my husband's shirt. Didn't look natural. Tried putting a jacket over it. Jacket was spotted. Gave up on that idea.
My husband showed me some wasps and bees (and flies) on the tree in our back yard. Would be perfect for "secret life of bees"!! It was a wasp with two flies right next to it. Humor, book title, all perfect! Not enough light. Even with 1600 ISO. No ring flash. Regular flash just doesn't work at a distance of 1 ft.
Gave up and went with the bird.
Other seagull options from the same shoot:
really liked this shot--liked the simplicity, but didn't know if it would interest others
liked it a lot, but was a tad too soft
loved the shot, didn't like the grain in the background
Went with this shot because the wings remind me of angel's wings. I think it's a little more unusual than the typical seagull shot. Since the book is about the joy of flying, I wanted to really get the wings involved.
[Aug. 12th, 2009 04:59:01 AM]
At 5.14 after 20 votes. I'm very confused--time for the critique club to explain! Hi guys, why is this scoring so incredibly low?
[Aug. 12th, 2009 04:59:44 AM]
aww... looks like I can't submit it to the club anymore. *sniff*
Statistics
Place: 50 out of 130 Avg (all users): 5.6988 Avg (commenters): 6.0000 Avg (participants): 5.6087 Avg (non-participants): 5.7333 Views since voting: 3314 Views during voting: 286 Votes: 166 Comments: 7 Favorites: 0
I gave this a 6 and like some others said, I think I was looking for a little more scenery. Still a great shot tho. It's hard to get a nice crisp shot of a bird in motion and you did a good job here.
Wendy, I didn't vote on this challenge. However, like VitaminB I probably would have only given it a 5.
From a compositional point of view, I find this to be framed too tightly. I would want to see more of the sky. In fact, to be honest, I think to portray JLS well, a soaring seagull, however boring, would have perhaps been a higher scoring choice.
Also, it looks like this has been heavily cropped and somehow that affects the image quality. Please bear in mind this is only my opinion, but it may explain some of the 3s and 4s. Don't know if this helps at all.
Im in the Critique Club, but didnt pull this out from CC, but I will treat this as if I did anyway.
First, the shot is a good one, well exposed, well composed, and the seagull has a nice 'pose' to it. It could be a bit sharper, as it doesnt have the detail in the wings that high scoring images on DPC are known to have.
For me though, I voted this a 5. Mainly because of the subject itself. A seagull to me isnt very special, in fact, I find it an annoying bird, so even good photos of a seagull dont inspire much of a reaction out of me. Not sure if other voters felt the same way, but it explains my one vote anyway.
You are known for taking photos of birds as well, and this is not your first seagull shot. I find the following photo much better:
Overall though, 5.6 isnt a terrible score. You and I were very close in fact.
Good shutter speed to freeze the action. Looks a little noisy though in the background. The whites look blown out on the face. There are lots of birds that are both dark and white, which presents a challenge trying to expose them properly. Your main priority should be to keep from blowing out the whites. So try to expose the histogram as far to the right as you can without losing detail in the whites. I hope this helps you :)
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