Untitled

Nice shot - and not 'just' a snapshot...because snapshots are one of the most important kinds of photographs...some of the best and most meaningful portraits, landscapes, and news pictures are snapshots. This picture is well composed, strikingly graphical (I love the stripes of the plastic contrasting with the spots of the giraffe, and the blue complementing the red), and yet 'human'. As well as being stylistically good it anthropomorphosis the giraffe. It looks a bit pee-ed off, as you might too if you were stuck behind a plastic sheet, hiding from the rain(?)! The image also could (whether or not the photographer intended) work on a symbolic level. Many 'nature' photographers would've tried to hide the fact that the giraffe wasn't in it's natural habitat and zoomed in close to get a nice abstract on the face...but that has been done a thousand times. This was well 'seen', and expresses something a bit more interesting. Finally, I thoroughly agree that sharpness (as opposed to 'being in focus') is too often fawned over. So what if a photo isn't taken with a $1000 lens... we can still see what it is we are looking at. Maybe we can't enlarge it up to A0 and then view it from a centimetre away, but then how big is the Mona Lisa (to make a hackneyed comparison). A good picture seen small is better than an okay picture shown huge, so we gawp at the size (a great art gallery 'trick'). I'm not saying this is the best picture ever, but it is certainly on a par with (or better than) many POWs I've seen on Photo.net. It is refreshingly different from most of the nature shots posted here, and less contrived than many of the human portraits. Well done...and best wishes.

...I should have said 'hiding from the heat of the sun', not the rain...I can see it's not raining!

I'm so glad this got chosen as POW - as I was scrolling through last week, this one jumped straight out at me and I've been back to look a few times. That's what makes a good book, as opposed to a bestseller - you like it enough to revisit, however technically brilliant or clever the bestseller may have been!

The giraffe peeking through the blinds is very cute...she looks curious. Too bad the focus is a little soft, but it's still a nice shot. You have to capture the moment! 5/6

I manually sharpened the giraffe with photo editor, and adjusted contrast and brightness slightly. Hope you don't mind.

Here's a test; just try to duplicate this shot...

I usually burn in the perimeter if the highlights need help but the darker area around the head here provides contrast while the perimeter looks like plastic should look.

Great shot.

I, too, like the picture, but I'm confused by the shadow on the right hand side. It looks almost superimposed, and does not seem to correspond to the shape of the giraffe's head or neck. I'm tempted to ask whether this was a photoshop job. Forgive me for uttering the unutterable!

 

Grahame

If I was there, front of this giraffe, I'd take this shot with an empty space on the right side to "open" the photo in the way "she" is looking at. But I have to say that I find your choice quite excellent : it increases the originality of the shot by enhancing a graphic way. Moreover, colors/tones are beautiful.

What a great photo, I have no critique to offer.

 

But there is something that often bothers me about images like this. No cutline! I am constantly drawn to photographs as they take us to places we only would have dreamed of otherwise. But I really wish there was some text to explain where this was and what the giraffe was doing. I really don't care about the technical data, I work with a camera everyday and often that stuff is just rhetoric, but I need captions to satisfy the enormous curiosity that I have about these images. My work is primarily photojournalism so I guess part of the reason I feel this way is I am used to writing captions for all of my images. Anyway, it's a nice shot I just wish I knew what country this was in, wheter it's a zoo or he's poking through a backyard fence, what he is investigating, etc. I love that the photo intriques me, now I want to learn something new.

Before uploading images - please read Patricks request above as well as the instructions that are written in the page where you upload photographs...

When including images, please make sure they are relevant to the discussion, not more than 511 pixels wide, sufficiently compressed and make sure to enter a caption when uploading."

Anytime a giraffe is in the picture, it automatically becomes surreal (-: Actually, i quite like it with one of the vertical blinds being substituted with a most vertical animal.

Feeling a bit self-conscious, Marion pokes her head out of the shower to ask for a towel.

Very humorous!! Good snap!

For those of you who are new and as a reminder to the regulars...

I thought I'd post a link to the guidelines for posting comments

on the Photo of the Week:

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo-of-the-week/about

 

This link used to be on the first page of PN but now that it is hidden, I'm faily sure that there are quite a few people that may not know about the rules.

Carlos, your depiction of the inhumanity pervasive upon the caged creatures of this world strikes a cord within me. (Or, it could have been gas....) Great shot, you were lucky enough to be in the right place, and congrats on POW. Pay no attention to the unlucky ones of the rest of us drooling over your beautiful image.

I also like the irony aspect of this image - the giraffe looking out at us looking in. I think it would have been stronger though if the animal was actually looking at us rather than past us. Otherwise the plastic strips have a nice graphic feel to them and the blue offsets the orange nicely. Again here I think it would have been stronger if the plastic had been cleaned recently but I imagine that was beyond the control of the photographer. I agree with Mona that burning in the plastic a tad helps hold our eyes on the main protagonist. On the otherhand, I fear raising Mona's ire, because I think a small crop adds to the strength of the photograph. Basically I made the plastic strips hang vertically to emphasise that graphic element, and I removed part of the animals chest to add a slight disconnect between the image and strict reality. Overall I think it is a nice image and one I am glad to have seen but not one that I will remember for a long time to come.

Sorry Richard, but I resemble that! Anyway, no I am not a big fan of cropping, but this photo,

unlike a lot of others, really doesn't have any real content, if you will, outside of the giraffe.

The plastic is basically a homogenous background, part of the irony to be sure, and cropping

seems to only change the framing rather than what the photo is or says. I am not sure if I

like your crop or the original better, except that I had wondered to myself whether trimming

the far left would improve the image. Since the giraffe contrasts with the curtains, I think he

already drew the attention and I am not sure if it is the crop or darkening the plastic which is

making him more prominent in your version.

LOL...Hi Mona. Everything you say makes sense and I agree. My main idea was to disconnect the neck and head from the body just a little, rather than to increase the prominence of the beast. In the end I agree that it is probably a six-of-one half-a-dozen of the other kind of thing.

I miss the curvature of the shoulder and neck in Richard's version. He mentioned cleaning the plastic though, which I thought was a good idea, and now that the posting of alternate versions has been broached by someone other than me, thought I would post my poor cleaning attempt... (there have been some resulting colour changes that I thought were okay too, and I did go with straight curtains and a tiny crop off L).

sorry, forgot the caption to get it inline.

Ok, I assume the camera was one of the new 4:3 ratio Olympus digitals.

 

Or so the aspect ratio looks. And that is the problem. The objects (folds in the curtain, neck of the beast) are all vertical, but the giraffe is cut off at its knees, while the folds multiply on the left side manyfold.

 

This composition is very unbalanced; a panoramic, a thinner width and greater height picture from the floor (to anchor the pic) up to above the g's head would be stunning.

 

This one is a cute, but unbalanced, ill composed, limit-of-camera grabshot. But

too bad for the great shot that was waiting to be taken then and there. Sorry.

No doubt its a great shot ... with supeb depth, color and tones what so ever ... really a unique shot of its class. So simple but much ... Enjoyed very much ... !

I have no problem with the composition, I think it's a great shot. I just want a cutline. I judge photos for competition every month and I mark higher when a shooter knows how to write a cutline.

Reminded me of some of funny animal shots of LIFE Laughs serie. Funny also to see that at PNet homepage... looks like saying 'what going on here?'

Nothing much to discuss about it IMO. A humoristic and 'candid' portrait... refreshing POW this week! congratulations Carlos

Well, i really like this picture and it deserve POW. The last times it is a theme that i�m learning to take pictures. Animals always are interesting. I�ve got a picture that i never seem something same before, as you can see in this picture above. Congratulations