Eleanor Helper
| Shelby Acton |
| Dean Hellinger |
| Eleanor Helper |
| Burt Hesselson |
| Donn Miertl |
| Michael Rosenbaum |
| Larry Beller |
| Home |
"Double Vision"
May Image
How I did it -
Last March I went on a
college alumni tour of Ecuador, including the Galapagos Islands. We saw many
exotic (to our eyes) birds, reptiles & mammals. On the island of Espianola
the trail went past a brackish lagoon in which were maybe a couple dozen
endangered Galapagos flamingoes. It was a peaceful scene as the birds lazily
stood on one foot or dipped their long necks into the water to feed. For a
change the photographers had enough time to take almost all the pictures
desired.
Image taken on 3/22/2008in mid afternoon. Canon Digital Revel XTi at ISO of
400 (often there were dark clouds & there was little time to fiddle with
settings). Speed 1/800, aperture f11. Tamron 28-300 lens set at 154. I did
not carry a tripod—most trails were too rough & it was necessary to
concentrate on footing and balance. Most of the time there was not enough
time to take all the photos we wanted to, much less set up and use a tripod.
Obviously this was not a photo expedition.
The above lens setting took in more of the lagoon and shore than I wanted. I
cropped in on this dramatic part of the image. Did little else besides usual
Levels, a little increase in Contrast and Saturation. Burned in some of
ripples and dodged darker spots on the wings. Added a narrow frame with
Stroke.
Comments |
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| Shelby Acton | Great capture. I wouldn't change a thing.
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| Dean Hellinger | The reflected pair is nicely done. Certainly one of the advantages of digital is the ability to crop as desired, I like the slim vertical. I tried a bit more blue on the water, I liked it.
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| Burt Hesselson |
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| Donn Miertl |
Great shot. By keeping the water and background, you added emphasis to the subject. Try a little color saturation to the birds. The impressive thing with this shot is that you saw a very powerful subject presentation.
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| Michael Rosenbaum | I envy your being in the Galapagos,
Eleanor. I went about eight years ago; it’s unlike anywhere else I’ve
been. This is a fine image of the flamingos. You were fortunate to get
the two of them. The legs and necks make wonderful lines. The only
nitpicks I have are the reflection under the chest/neck of the further
flamingo—you might clone this out. Also, there are to smudges, one above
the further flamingo, one in the upper corner (clouds reflected?), that
distract a bit. This image should garner you numerous acceptances if you
enter international exhibitions with it.
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| Larry Beller |
You have captured the plumage and graceful curves of the birds excellently. If it were mine, I would change two things: I would crop from the bottom, maybe not quite as far as I have here, to emphasize the birds themselves (the birds and their complete reflections compete for attention; partial reflections don't compete, but still tell the story well,) and I would darken the background. In this case I selected the background with Color Range command and made it a light blue without changing the color of the birds in any way; to me, this adds depth to the image and further emphasizes the birds.
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The two
flamingoes complement each other perfectly; almost a ballet. All I did
to help the image was to eliminate the merge at the bottom of the
reflection. I added a small amount to the bottom with Image>Canvas Size,
cloned in the tiny bit of missing reflection and all the water.
| Member Bio | |
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Eleanor W. Helper - Biography
Although I have been a
snapshooter as long as I can remember, I only got serious about
photography in the late 1980s when I joined a camera club in Columbus,
Ohio, won an honorable mention in my first competition and was hooked.
Later that year I won the Slide of the Year but haven’t hit that
dizzying height since. A year later I joined a nature club. That kept me
on my toes.
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