Wildlife photos are rare for me since my longest lens is a 70-210mm. All feedback is appreciated.

Joel Collins | jwc3@mindspring.com | http://www.mindspring.com/~jwc3

-- Joel Collins (jwc3@mindspring.com), September 09, 1998

Answers

I like the image, however, I think the top part (dark area) competes with the main subject. I would have eliminated the dark area by moving the main subject higher in the frame. This would have given a lighter feel to the image and would have yielded a more elegant composition. well done.

-- Bahman Farzad (cpgbooks@mindspring.com), September 09, 1998.

It's a fairly nice shot. The areas it fails in are the flat lighting and the lack of any detail (catchlights) in the eyes. It's still definately a keeper though.

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), September 09, 1998.

I find the composition very static and uninteresting. Its centered in the frame and as pointed out the lighting is flat with little facial detail. In order to improve the composition, I'd crop off half the space between the bottom of the deer and the bottom of the photo and also the black area at the top. This helps to focus in on the deer more.

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), September 09, 1998.

Thanks for your input. It seems every person that has commented on this photo wants me to crop tighter so that the image is ONLY the deer. I purposefully left the dark area above the deer to add some depth to the shot. (By the way, it's not black, it's dark green -- adjust your monitor!) Thanks for your opinions, but I prefer the shot the way it is shown here. I'm not a wildlife photo expert, but isn't one of the goals to show an animal in its surroundings, not just the animal? A lack of relation to the surroundings is something that I find lacking in almost all wildlife shots posted in this forum. I think that's why so many of them are so boring.

Other shots that I took of this deer and his pals (there were 10 of them) shows the deer grazing with large buldozers in the background. Their home was quickly being converted into a golf course. By including the construction equipment, the other photos say a lot more about these deer than the image I posted here. The rules in this forum won't allow me to post the other images, since the "hand of man" is eaisly visible. However, the reality is that wildlife is very much shaped by the hand of man, and "hiding" or "cropping-out" that influence does little to raise awareness and protect nature. If we don't protect nature, we won't have anything to photograph!

OK, sorry for the preaching.

Joel Collins | jwc3@mindspring.com | http://www.mindspring.com/~jwc3

-- Joel Collins (jwc3@mindspring.com), September 11, 1998.

The eye is naturally drawn to the point of highest contrast; in this image, that means the deer's ears and nose are competing with the dark green patch at the top of the photo. The dark strip at the top doesn't tell us anything significant about the deer's environment. I like the photo a lot better cropped to exclude it.

-- Russ Arcuri (arcuri@borg.com), September 12, 1998.