My "reject" won POTM!?!

luckydog

This is a picture of one of my pet Green Tree Frog's that I rejected as my entry to a wildlife challenge. I posted it as a general entry afterwards and the damn thing won the POTM in the nature/animal category! As you know, I classed it as a reject, so I thought I'd get some opinions from my learned friends in DGRIN. Be tough as it wasn't my fav anyway...:):

DavidTO

luckydog wrote:

This is a picture of one of my pet Green Tree Frog's that I rejected as my entry to a wildlife challenge. I posted it as a general entry afterwards and the damn thing won the POTM in the nature/animal category! As you know, I classed it as a reject, so I thought I'd get some opinions from my learned friends in DGRIN. Be tough as it wasn't my fav anyway...:):

I like the eye. Tree frogs are just cool, plain and simple. I like the negative space top right. Nice shot, you luckydog!

David_S85

"Reject" or not, I like it.

Lighting. Not a lot, but just enough.

While the DOF is very restricted, it does cover the nostril to eyeball, and that's just enough too, it seems, to evoke the viewer. The out of focus areas don't matter here. "Just enough" is sometimes a stronger statement.

The pose (pose a frog?) is contemplative, in a Yoda sort of way. That's rather endearing.

I say... Good Job , even if you don't like it as much. What matters is that someone else did look at it as something special.

pathfinder

luckydog wrote:

This is a picture of one of my pet Green Tree Frog's that I rejected as my entry to a wildlife challenge. I posted it as a general entry afterwards and the damn thing won the POTM in the nature/animal category! As you know, I classed it as a reject, so I thought I'd get some opinions from my learned friends in DGRIN. Be tough as it wasn't my fav anyway...:):

I find it interesting that we go out of our way to configure the subject away from the center of the frame - like with the 2/3s rule, and here is a shot with the eye dead center and yet it seems to work. Maybe the dead space upper right plays to that. Very interesting, and congratulations!

There is a nice diagonal line of light-to-dark running from front-right to upper-left - this seems to give the image some dynamism it would lack otherwise with the centered eye/subject. Maybe???

adrian_k

David_S85 wrote:

"Reject" or not, I like it.

Lighting. Not a lot, but just enough.

While the DOF is very restricted, it does cover the nostril to eyeball, and that's just enough too, it seems, to evoke the viewer. The out of focus areas don't matter here. "Just enough" is sometimes a stronger statement.

The pose (pose a frog?) is contemplative, in a Yoda sort of way. That's rather endearing.

I like the way the light falls off so its' RHS is totally dark.

luckydog

Thanks everyone

I guess I was critiquing myself too hard. Thanks for the great critiques too; Lot's of good and useful feedback.

Now lets get back to checking out all the cool photos in this cool forum

ginger_55

On this idea of "centering" things in photos, back in the 70s I read many articles and parts of books that told how/when centering should/could be done. Wonderful examples by famous/and not so famous people were shown.

Most of them were not that technical: kind of like the 2/3s rule is good, but sometimes it works to center. Then there were the very formal photos where centering was the rule, I can't remember what they are called.

I was very surprised when I heard people on dGrin saying "never" center, things. And remember the 2/3s rule. It would have seemed more appropriate to say something like, "in this case, it would be best to follow the rule of thirds, IMHO". That was just my own humble opinion.

I have put things up that are centered and not heard a peep, sometimes praise, sometimes not. Then I got paranoid about centering HERE, and that threw me for awhile.

I just wanted to point out that the idea of thirds is one guideline, one that is very good to know, but there are times it works better to use a different rule: whatever works. Never is always wrong when the word is on a test. It is a very long time.

And there was a time that concept was taught.

That is a wonderful photo.

Congratulations,

ginger

bfjr

Only thing wrong with this shot, is you rejected it
congrats on the win
One of things I notice as far as rules go, IMHO it's not dead center, why cause the whole frog is set of to the right 1/3. If the nose of the frog would have been in the center then it would have not worked, make sense ??

lynnma

bfjr wrote:

Only thing wrong with this shot, is you rejected it
congrats on the win
One of things I notice as far as rules go, IMHO it's not dead center, why cause the whole frog is set of to the right 1/3. If the nose of the frog would have been in the center then it would have not worked, make sense ??

Hey congrats. thats wonderful!

ltdesignphoto

I think it's an awesome shot. I can understand why, as a photog, you might reject it and place in a different shot, but it's still a great shot. There is a very relaxed feel to it. Very soft, mellow and almost peaceful in a sense. I like tree frogs though. They're very pretty and very cool.

I also took a look at your smug mug site. Very nice shots. I need to move to Australia or somewhere like that. There aren't a lot of cool and colorful animals to take pics of around Eastern North Carolina. Maybe a few birds here and there, racoons, ugly bullfrogs (and I mean ugly) and maybe some gators around once in a while. I have yet to capture a gator with my camera but maybe one day.
-t

Nir

I think it's a great shot; half a face, 1 eye, 1 nostril - they make it unique and interesting!

Congratulations!

hichuz

great photo... congrats! You should have a caption contest... my immediate thought: "ask me if I give a ----". Anyway, think the lighting aspect is great, serves to highlight the indifference of the subject... can understand why it was selected.