"Roman Amphitheater and Tourists at Petra "

January

Photographer's Comments -

This shot at Petra was taken last April in Petra. It was shot at f/7.1, ISO 100 and 1/200. I liked getting the color of a couple camels and tourists in front of the amphitheater.

 

COMMENTS:
 

Karen Leonard	The camels with their red blankets and the woman riding the camel make the photo.
Dean Hellinger	Captures the awesome area, enough people to help show the size and scale of the place the red on the camels is great. I suppose you could make a different picture by isolating a camel with just a portion of the amphitheater, or some other selection but I like your choice.
Eleanor Helper	A fine Travel image. The camels with their red blankets really make the image. While normally I love deep blue skies here I find them a distraction. There is so much going on with the camels, the tourists and the local folks plus the texture of the rocks behind them that that sliver of blue is too much.
Burt Hesselson	Petra is the most amazing place I have ever visited in the 86 countries we have seen. In 1994 I covered the peace treaty signing between Israel and Jordan as a press photographer for an ABC television station. The next day my wife and I were the first two persons ever to visit Jordan and Petra from the that day new southern entrance from Israel to Jordan and with Israeli stamps in our passports. This image is very strong and the camels take it out of the snapshot view usually taken by tourists, now into a competition photo. I made a very small improvement by cloning out the person in the lower right and the one in bright blue in the far left. Now not quite as busy, but still with enough people to give scale to the enormity of the carvings.
Donn Miertl	This is one of those shots that are made by the overall impact of the scene. The position of the camels is perfect and technically this is a great shot. It would be worth the time to clone some of the tourists out of the shot. I hope you used a whole roll of film in this area because you have a season's worth of subjects here.
Larry Beller	The composition and technique are good, and your choice of subject matter tells a good story story. (It's a shame the tourists aren't wearing togas  --  then we would have a REAL story.) This shows a part of Petra that isn't often pictured.
Tim Christoffersen replies:	I really like Burt's suggestion! I am going to make those suggested changes and submit the image in a pictorial ('fine art') competition. I did quite well with it as a travel shot but the judges often tend to discount an image for pictorial if they comment that it would be good in travel. It is too busy with all the 'folks' but taking out those that Burt points out gives it a shot in a pictorial competition. Will report the outcome. Competition is stiff as we have 8 folks in the Masters competition in our club.

Member Bio

Tim Christoffersen - Photographic Biography My first run in with photography was in high school when I took photography and shot for the annual. As a college sophomore, I spend six months studying in Italy. I had decided I did not want to see Europe “through a lens”, so I left my camera behind. What now is a passion remained largely dormant until my daughter’s wedding 10 years ago. I took pictures of each person who attended the reception in our back yard and found I really liked taking close ups of people. Since that date, I have taken trips alone to India, Burma, Vietnam, Buenos Aires, London, Brazil, Mali and China. Until 2009 I mostly focused on taking pictures of people. My approach is to spend the necessary time to make my subjects feel comfortable and secure their permission to take their picture. Over the last year I have focused on improving my skills in landscape/seascape photography. I find I must focus on developing my skills and not on competing, as there are so many talented landscape photographers out there. On the personal side, I retired for the second time in 2005 after 35 years in business. For the last 25 years I was the chief financial officer of several public and private companies. I also am an Episcopal priest and I have worked for the last 9 nine years as a hospice chaplain.