I enjoyed The Handbook of Bird Photography by Markus Varesvuo, Jari Peltomaki and Bence Mate. A lot of it is not new, but it's good to be reminded, and Bence Mate especially has an innovative approach that appeals even if I don't see myself ever going as far as he has.
When writing about photographing with water he's a fan of reflections, but I'm not so sure, even when there is perfect symmetry and a 'clean' mirror image. I think they can look contrived. The top shot above is not a great example I will admit, but personally I prefer the second framing.
That said this snap from a few years ago does work I think. Shame about the distraction to the left - a case for a bit of photoshopping?
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| From Woodland puddles |
3 comments:
Hi Brian! Stunning picture! Personally I like reflections as long as they don't distract too much from the real thing. Perfect mirror images just seem to annoy me!
Kind regards, Brian.
Hi Brian, interesting topic. I'm not a great lover of reflections either although as in the case of my recent Élan valley stuff I think that sometimes they add a certain something. Over the years there have been some stunners on Birdguides and they always seem to go down well.
On another note but of a similar theme, I worry about backgrounds. I think we all strive to get clutter free backgrounds, but sometimes I think they look contrived too. Sometimes it's nice to have "habitat" shots don't you think?
Backgrounds do matter, although I
having looked at lots of pics the real standout ones tend to be where the background tells you about the environment. This was my favourite recent example http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?v=1&f=428532 I don't mind some foliage, etc, but what does grate for me is the bright white line - usually grass or a twig. And really hard to deal with even in photoshop. Often you notice it best looking at thumbnails where it stands out a mile.
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