This September I was trying to do something different with seahorses. We were diving together in a small area so I figured a lot of us will meet the same yellow seahorses, so I chose to take another photographic route. I have recieved both right and wrong for this pictures, so I've decided to my picture to your mercy
I took it for granted that by now people have seen (and in our club have had seen because many of us were shooting them) a lot of seahorses, so just another portrait would be like a drop in a pond. My route was to use very shallow dof to detail the eyes and show it's little white spots on the mouth part in defocus because i figures these blurry spots are just plain nice... The little guy was sitting on the bottom among lots of seagrass, but moving him was naturally not an option.
What do You folks think? Is it something nice or is it just a road leading nowhere?
Thanks for the feedback!
Zook
Hi!
Well I think You are on the right road with this shot - needle sharp eye tells a good story.
But when looking at this shot it seemed unbalanced to me (tilted my head searching for something), so I tryed to flip and rotate it a bit and found this solution much pleasing to my eye
Like this it seems like it's giving a peek over it's sholder
Just my 2 cents
Karel
I also like the idea alot, but also feel the composition can be slightly better. Having said that, I do like the dynamic feel of the vertical orientation.
Hi!
Well I think You are on the right road with this shot - needle sharp eye tells a good story.
But when looking at this shot it seemed unbalanced to me (tilted my head searching for something), so I tryed to flip and rotate it a bit and found this solution much pleasing to my eye
Like this it seems like it's giving a peek over it's sholder
Just my 2 cents
Karel
thanks karel, aqua-soul,
karel, i have a horizontal shot as well, looks like this:
aqua-soul: same thing here, I chose the vertical because I too feel the dynamics of that alignment, but it's true that it also has a feeling of easily "tipping over"
A lot of the imbalance would be taken away if the shot were repeated with the eye on the "golden section" used in classical art (an intellectual's version of the "rule of thirds"). I think that you would need to include the "crown" and the image would then frame either as a landscape or a portrait.
I like the critical focus idea, but I think that it's important that the seahorse's snout is just visible. It prevents the image becoming confusing.
Tim
A lot of the imbalance would be taken away if the shot were repeated with the eye on the "golden section" used in classical art (an intellectual's version of the "rule of thirds"). I think that you would need to include the "crown" and the image would then frame either as a landscape or a portrait.
I like the critical focus idea, but I think that it's important that the seahorse's snout is just visible. It prevents the image becoming confusing.
Tim
Thanks Tim, I'll surely try to shoot it this way next time. The main lesson I learnt now was that it's nice to compose dead on in the viewfinder, but next time I'll include a wider shot as well to play around with the cropping. I'll try to do it the way you suggested, maybe there is some reserve in the raw file.
