Motown meets Antarctica

Wonderful photo. I imagine that you were either quick with your lens or had a lot of patience to find the right angle to get this shot. It is rare to capture wildlife in a grouping like this, and you rendered it very well.

Brings thoughts of the question your parents would ask - "Would you jump off a rock just because your friends are?" Looks like they would. Very fun shot!

I must say you have a talent for naming photos. If you had just put these images up with out a title they would have been just another good photo. But you have us seeing the penguins performing. Well done.

This shot came within minutes of setting up my tripod at one of our zodiac landings. There's always a lot of traffic on the shore as penguins go from their nests to their feeding grounds in the sea, a seemingly endless process. Penguins often followed a few familiar paths, one of which apparently crossed this boulder toward the camera. In places the rocks were polished smooth from countless clawed feet walking these paths over the centuries.

 

Seeing a few humans as they came over the top of this rock, most penguins would stop and study us for a bit - grouping together as they did so. Since they tended to move in sync as they got into the water (to confuse predators, a sort of flocking behavior) they seemed to do likewise in this uncertain situation.

 

I found a similar shot taken a minute or two later where three penguins lined up in a similar pose. I could have shot for hours without moving the camera more than 50 feet from this spot and never duplicated myself.

 

 

This is quite a neat shot - more comical anyhow than some of the other stuff we have been served in this category.

 

However, there are several areas in which the picture could be significantly improved. Some of them could easily be addressed now by appropriate post-processing.

 

First of all there could be more colour/contrast. I think strong colours would realy help to underline the comic nature of the photo. As an alternative, you might wish to check how this picture looks in B&W - as one previous commenter remarked, it's almost B&W as it is. In this contect, I'd love to know which of the four film was actually used.

 

Also, I find the background in this shot rather distracting. At least it doesn't seem to add anything valuable to the shot. Particularly the 5th penguin is disctincly present, but so out of focus that he only appears as a white blobb.

 

Unfortunately you can't get rid of him by cropping, but you should at the very least crop the unsightly white margin around the top of the picture.

 

 

I basically agree with Frank Muller's comments... The colors being a bit dull, the fifth penguin - easily cloned off in PS... the lack of light as well... Finally, I doubt we need all this background. Maybe it is your policy, Tom, to present shots uncropped, but I think that a square cropping on the 4 penguines alone would be better... Of course, the subject is fun, and you certainly managed a good catch. Post editing could solve most of the problems I still see here.

A decent job on an excellent subject.

I am a really big fan of B&W and I think this image is great in Colour. I also like the full image, kind of a context builder to show the surroundings a bit, a little more out of the photo than the initial comedy thing.

 

I'm a little curious as to what the comments were that got cencored, but I hope it doesn't dominate the thread on this great picture.

 

PS. Is that white streak on the rock bird poop?

This is a good shot in its own way. I like the composition, disagree that a tighter crop would improve matters.

What film did you shoot this with? Was it overcast or did you process it for the subdued lighting?

Tom,

 

A clever shot that will make ya crack a smile!

 

I'm curious - What effect a small amount of fill flash would have added - and could it be done without disturbing the birds?

 

I find the white ice flow/land mass in the upper right a bit distracting from the main subject. - Though it does add the feeling of the environment they're in.

 

again Congrats!

Nice photo... so of course I couldn't help but screw around with it in PS to see if I could lighten it up a bit. Brightened the whole thing up, increased the blue channel gamma a bit. Also cropped off that pesky iceberg and tried to move

the birds off center so they appeared to be stepping into the frame a little.

 

As ever, no disrespect to the original, just my taste etc etc.

Cheers,

I do like the original image and am not sure that the cropping above or other such suggestions can offer an improvment. I do however wonder what the picture would have been had it been panned down a fraction. What is there? sea or more rock. The rock itself with its lovely detail conveys a lovely sense of remotness which perhaps is one of impressions this photo gives - a cold comedy? This is somthing that only the photographer knows and perhaps even tried. Overall I like this photograph and would be delighted if it were mine. The colours work as indeed do the centering of the penguins. Congrats!!!

Very nice image from a very strong folder. And from that folder, I like these two images even more: Dejected Penguin and

The sun never sets on the British Empire. Still, well done and congratulations on being awarded POW -- well deserved.

 

Very cute. Well caught image and I also love the title. Yes, the penguin in the background does look a little like a undistinguishable white fuzz... A change in camera position would have helped a bit. I like the image very much -yet feel that the shot is a little too blue and the fix by Graham is too magenta... It may be a monitor problem but as far as I know my monitor is calibrated properly. I've played with the color a bit myself as shown above. I've toned down the hazy blue. Other than the blue cast - I think this image is fun and very well executed!

I noticed that in lightening the image... the snow covered land in the background is blown out. In the original, at least you can tell what is in the background. Still, the penquins are the main subject here and at this point, maybe I'd crop a little of the top. Just my view and I'm sure we'll hear many more. That's what it's all about.

Hi Mary, I'm using a laptop (and it's after 1am)... yep, my version is magenta. Partly because I was trying to make the beaks and claws pop a little without blowing out, not just the snow, but also the neck (?) feathers on one of the penguins... (not sure I like my crop either:-)

While I find the iceberg slightly distracting, I don't think cropping would enhance the image. Lighting is a little dull but PS lightening results in blown out snow (as Mary noted). Still a very good shot. I also vote for dejected penguin however, and agree that he has some very good shots in his folder. Congrats on POW.

I think the success of this photo does indeed owe itself to what the elves aptly described as "great timing". The title is also "great". I appreciate the whimsy.

 

Many have noted the drab lighting (slightly under-exposed?) and, more recently, the blue cast of the photo. Brian's "adjusted" version is the best remedy so far, although I think his burn-in of "Vuk" is a little extreme, and nearly as distracting as the original because of it. And, I hate to bring it up given the shifting horizon we had two weeks ago, but this horizon is also slightly off-kilter.

 

Finally, returning to titles, I had left three posts on last weeks POW... the second of these was deleted. The post dealt with the importance (as I see it) of titles. It had *absolutely no personal attacks or innuendo*. Moreover, it dealt with an issue raised earlier by Tom M. and was an issue I felt worthy of following up on given the lack of a title on that particular POW. I would like to know why this was deleted. I am especially concerned given the notes above on this particular POW of additional comments (supposedly related to this image, although I don't know for certain as I have not had the luxury of reading them) also being deleted.

Alright, I've got terrible color vision, but here's my version.

I'm going to try to do a good job moderating the comments on this photo this week. Comments that discuss the image itself are welcome. If you like the image for some reason that hasn't been stated already, please let us know what grabbed you. If you find a way to improve the image that hasn't already been mentioned, please let us know. A comment of the form "Great photo" will be nuked (no explanation; redundant). A comment with the same content, e.g., "use fill flash", as a previous comment will be nuked. A comment that refers to other users (except as necessary to distinguish an idea in another posting), a previous controversial Photo of the Week, or anything else off-topic will be nuked (even if a portion of the comment might otherwise have been okay; I'm too busy to start editing other folks' writings--I have enough trouble editing my own stuff).

 

So please try to keep the discussion focussed on photography and not personality (of which most photographers have very little worth noting).

This is my suggested improvement mentioned above as the "best so far" -- again. The background was burned in and blurred slightly in places, and the white balance was made more neutral. It was cropped somewhat to make the Fab Four less central.

Let me try this again in a less controversial manner. I believe that a better lens would have resulted in a sharper picture with more contrast and saturation.

Hard to be sure about the horizon not being straight, since part of it is obscured by what looks like a land mass. I think Nick might be right, though. By the way, my edited version wouldn't have made it skewed unless it already was.

I respect your decision on "filtering" the posts here but can't quite understand it. I fully agree with a previous comment stating that the same opinion repeated several times by different persons gets reinforced and becomes more relevant than if it is -allowed to be- expressed only once. And I'd say that the author's opinion might be worth of consideration on this respect, don't you think?

 

Anyway, I'm just wondering why I'm writing this comment, since it is possibly irrelevant according to your standards and therefore it might very well be as short-lived as my previous one :-).

 

Regards,

Brian, my reference to a "skewed" horizon was indeed a reference to the original post by Tom Schonoff. Your resubmitted alternative seems to have corrected it somewhat.

Armand:

 

It is true that your comment above is off-topic and ought, by rights, to be deleted. But I'll elaborate a bit. Photo.net runs from an Oracle database. This has been around for one decade so far and will be around for many decades to come. Imagine a reader 10 or 20 years from now. He or she is trying to learn about photography. That reader is going to be thwarted if there are 500 comments on a photo, 90 percent of which are duplicates or off-topic. The purpose of the site is education, not supporting random discussion (though we do have that in the unmoderated forum and we also link to an AOL Instant Messenger chat room).

 

If the wheat in the site is buried under 100 tons of chaff, it becomes tougher for searchers in Google or searchers on our own local search engine to find anything worth reading.