Flights

seastack

with apologies to Elliot Erwitt ...

HoofClix

Neat thing about this is the timing. The bird is seemingly looking at you whilst the plane is just so...

What aperture did you use on this??

alexf

Nice. I'd clone out the plane and the light pole on the bottom-left as distracting and not adding to the image.

Wil Davis

I think the plane is essential, but I agree about the light in the bottom corner. I'm not sure about the amount of empty space in the centre and lower half of the picture, and you're losing quite a bit of detail in the shadows. How does it look in colour? (or perhaps the original is in mono).

Looks like the bird spends quite a bit of time on his perch…

Thanks for sharing…

- Wil

Richard

Wil Davis wrote:

I think the plane is essential...

Absolutely. I could go either way about the light at the bottom. Nice shot in any event.

seastack

Thanks for the comments )

I've debated the lightpole lower left myself but have left it in because it was there and was part of the conscious framing when I took the photo, right or wrong. The intent was to add a little balance to the blank space and a middleground (my mantra playing in my head when shooting is foreground, middleground, background) but you may be right that it ends up more of a distraction. The plane adds a bit of irony or even humor to the photo, or at least that was the intent ;-)), and was timed for the placement.

Hmm, shadow detail. I understand this can be important in some cases, although I usually don't care about it preferring instead a more graphically intense photo which has developed into a personal aesthetic style of sorts, but it is a good point to think about.

Why do I care about shadow detail in this instance?

adbsgicom

Love it as-is. The bird's orientation toward you is perfect.

Wil Davis

seastack wrote:

snip…
Why do I care about shadow detail in this instance?

I don't think you do, and I'm not saying that you should, but I'm saying that you might think about it.

Consider this: Looking at the picture for the first time, I see what I see and say that there's no shadow detail, and less than 20% of the available shades of gray. So, is that the photographer's "style" or is it a mistake? (rhetorical question…)

I've no idea what your intention is, I've no idea what your "style" is, although I "get" the juxtaposition of the bird with the plane.

If I'd printed that photo from a perfectly exposed and processed negative, I'd have thought that I'd made a mistake in the printing (either with the exposure or with the processing); this is because I try to capture exactly what I see in the viewfinder as accurately as possible, nothing more nothing less.

Of course the problem might be in the negative…

…and perhaps what we see in the photograph is actually exactly what you saw in the viewfinder.

I've not seen enough of your work to recognize your "style", so I can only make my judgments in the light of what I see and based on my own experience.

That's all…

- Wil

PS: So was the original in colour? …and if so, could we perhaps see it?

BTW: If you'd wanted a more intense effect, why not go with something like solarisation or reduce the picture to line-art by using find-edges? As is, I don't know if it's intentional or a mistake…

bdcolen

alexf wrote:

Nice. I'd clone out the plane and the light pole on the bottom-left as distracting and not adding to the image.

This is a joke, right?

bdcolen

seastack wrote:

with apologies to Elliot Erwitt ...

No apologies to anyone! This is freaking wonderful!! A terrific image!! In fact...I wish I could say I'd shot this.

bdcolen

seastack wrote:

Thanks for the comments )

I've debated the lightpole lower left myself but have left it in because it was there and was part of the conscious framing when I took the photo, right or wrong. The intent was to add a little balance to the blank space and a middleground (my mantra playing in my head when shooting is foreground, middleground, background) but you may be right that it ends up more of a distraction. The plane adds a bit of irony or even humor to the photo, or at least that was the intent ;-)), and was timed for the placement.

Hmm, shadow detail. I understand this can be important in some cases, although I usually don't care about it preferring instead a more graphically intense photo which has developed into a personal aesthetic style of sorts, but it is a good point to think about.

Why do I care about shadow detail in this instance?

You don't have to care about shadow detail - and the light in the lower left compositionally helps balance the image, playing off the larger light fixture and the plane in the upper right.

Wil Davis

OK…

To the OP: I admit I'd never heard of Elliot Erwitt (hey, at least I've learned something today!), so have just spent the last 10 mins quickly browsing through some of his work…

…man, what a hoot! Brilliant - OK, I see now where you're coming from (although I stand by what I wrote in my last post…)



- Wil

seastack

Erwitt is one of the greats ) Both a serious photojournalist and a great humorist. His abbreviated portfolio is here.

He took a very similar photo more than 30 years ago, though I did not know it when I took this one.

Pedro

A classic.

bdcolen

seastack wrote:

Erwitt is one of the greats ) Both a serious photojournalist and a great humorist. His abbreviated portfolio is here.

He took a very similar photo more than 30 years ago, though I did not know it when I took this one.

Photo journalist? Elliott Erwitt? While he has done some photo journalism over the years, I don't think of that label when I think of his name - just as I would never call Cartier-Bresson a photo journalist, though he did some terrific photo journalism at one time or another. (No, Rutt, do not start posting about the Gandhi funeral photo. )