need your input

[terryger]

my first post but a longtime lurker. i nned your opinion. i have a very thick skin so talk to me.

i know what i think about this pic but need to know what you think . i will never get abny better unless i can see things through other eyes.

this is a lrge meg shot so it has suffered through downsizing for the page. i am more ocncerned with the particulars.

thanx!

[PlantedTao]

Hey terry - welcome aboard...
Here is my 2 cents -
To improve on this picture you could have done several things:
don't put your subject dead center, this does not make for a very interesting picture (although for some pics it works). a crop on this picture would help...closing in on the dog and putting him more to the right of the photo.
the dog is the main interest of the photo and we don't really need to see a bunch of the surrounding objects...those decoys in the bg are cutoff and we don't need to see them.
the next time you take a picture like this you should get down to the dogs eye level. your perspective is not very interesting. by getting down lower we see more of the dog and water that's splashing all around him. by changing the perspective you could have also zoomed in on his face and the fowl he just caught.
it is a very interesting subject...it just needs to be composed better.
I hope that helps...and can't wait to see more.
Cheers.

[Piet]

The date is very distracting.There is too much space hehind the dog.Otherwise a nice shot.
Piet.

[jar_e]

I would recommend a nice tight crop around the dog, getting rid of the weeds, and all the other distractions. Leave some margain around the dog, and focus him on one side (not dead centre). You'd have a useable pic and a nice shot.

Easy fix,

Jared

[terryger]

thanx folks. seems i was thinking in the right direction anyway.

i have cfropped this thing multiple times and worked in different ways fooling around.

i have others with tighter closeups of the dogs face but that is pretty common in the field i am interested in and would lose the water which was the part i liked the best.

a few more questions if you please.

by cropping too far in would i not lose the action of the photo?

would a head on, slight quartering, or side shot be preferaable?

one of the beautiful and often challenging aspects of this subject is caputuring the drive of the dog to bring the bird as opposed to him walking out and back and the type of terrain the dog has overcome for the retrieve.

what would you suggest for better composition?

thanx for all of your help.

[anew]

I would tend to agree with PlantedTao on this one,

next time you're out shooting this kind of subject get down to the dogs eye level, at the moment he gets kinda lost in the whole composition of the image. I think a lower angle would get a lot more dinamism to the shot, giving the impression of the dirve you're looking for.

A few rapid fire shots could give you some interesting results.............

welcome to the forum, and hope to see a lot more soon.

cheers
anew.

[gahspidy]

Welcome to the board. Tao gave some good advice. I think in this and with most any shot you are going to take, you should always think about a different viewpoint than what we normally see. Getting down closer to the dogs level, and cropping in closer while still leaving us the water spalshing and some of the surroundings would have made a more dynamic, interesting shot. And for action shots like these firing off several shots in bursts would help capture that moment you think is best. Take many shots and then sort out the one or two you think are tops. And keep at it. You will improve by paying attention to the little things and reviewing your shots afterwards. Also this forum can be of great help to you as it has been for me.

[opus]

Just a thought on one of your questions:

By getting in tighter you don't really lose the surroundings, you just "refer" to them. Our minds really do fill in the rest when we're given just a little bit of detail. Give us a little bit of water, and a closeup of the dog's face and shoulders, and we'll see exactly what this dog's drive is, and the obstacles he has to overcome.

For instance, take a look at this photo, taken by one of our outstanding PR members, Sebastian. You may have seen this as you lurked. It's absolutely fantastic, and I think will illustrate what I'm saying:

The Truth Squad

What exactly is in the picture? Not a whole lot, actually! A woman, a sign, and a blurred out background.

But what do we know from looking at it? We know the woman is outside, at a large protest rally. The lighting tells us she's outside; the sign tells us she's at a protest, we infer that she's with other people. Her facial expression and body language convey a huge story about what's going on in her mind ... her "drive", you might say.

We get all that information from a tightly cropped, simple picture. And it's much more interesting, I think, than if all the details were completely spelled out for us.

[tangent] - it's the same principle that makes a written story, a screenplay, a stage play, a narrative, interesting. Give us snippets, and our mind will have a ball filling the rest in.

So don't be afraid of a tight crop.

HOWEVER, if you truly do want to get the vast expanse of water in the picture, then I'd suggest getting down low, using a wide angle, and make the dog look very small against all that water. You'd shift the focus to something different, in that case. The dog wouldn't be the central focus.

[terryger]

kellybean. i see what you mean. more is less.

this was taken with a cheaper digital and the burst is exactly what i needed so i bought a 20d a few weeks ago.

i was by myself when this was taken so it was hard to stay concealed, shoot the duck, drop the gun and grab the camera.


i plan on just shooting the pics in the future which should get me at better angles with more thought on setting up the shot.


this is the crit is need instead of "looks good" which is all i get from my friends. thanx!

in that vein of thought, is this heading in that direction? keep it coming folks.

[jar_e]

This one, compositionally, is alot better. There's still some focus and color issues, but I'm not sure if it's the jpeg compression or your camera. How do you resize your pictures? They are both quite pixelly, and could be easily fixed.

Jared

[terryger]

jared, these are just cut to fit the page.

they are all just test pics with no editing help. i have to work on the basics, which you folks have been helping me out with, before i can say i have a good shot that just needs to be cleaned up.

this is a 5 meg. the 20d shoots much cleaner but if i can't get the right comp who cares how clean it is.

this is the sort of help i need. you folks send me down the right road and i will have no trouble staying between the ditches.

thanx!

[adina]

Can you make them a little smaller?

It's hard for me to make a comment when I have to scroll. Usually 400x600 pixels works well.

Also, make sure you have the date imprint thingy turned off.

adina