squirrelman

Hi Ken. Nice effort, good exposure. The main problems I see here are the angle, which is looking from behind the butterfly, and the resulting lack of sharpness on the subject. If you had shot parallel to the butterfly, you could have got the entire critter in focus.

Thank you, Jamie. I didn't have much shutter speed to work with, so I was unable to reduce the aperture size any further without bringing camera shake into the picture.

I was very fortunate to finally get one of these beautiful critter's

in just the right lighting. They are iridescent black but reflect the

surrounding colors and often appear bluish purple. Frequently, they

are mistaken for crows but they are smaller and more slender in

build. No color manipulation was performed. Best viewed full size.

Critiques and comments are much appreciated.

Very dramatic composition, one which in this case works well being centered. However, I might have waited and placed the people walking so that their outlines were entirely visible on the blue pathway. Or perhaps even left the people out all together?

This man has a very interesting face and expression. Unfortunately, the face appears to have been in shadow and the lighter areas appear blown out on my monitor. DOF was also a bit short, and the nose appears out of focus. It does look as though some aggressive photo editing might improve this shot, such as burning in the blown highlights and perhaps applying some selective sharpening. I would also rotate the head counterclockwise a bit to level it, and perhaps clone in the darker background on the left into the right background area.

Well, he can't thump his chest like Tarzan, but this determined

little sparrow is displaying the feathers on his chest to attract

some potential Jane. The background is the front of a brownstone on

my block. The lighting was very strong, and I was fortunate to get

the right angle to mimimize shadowing.

 

Best viewed in the larger size format.

Thanks. How did you tell it was a female?

Sparrow surveys the surroundings from on top of a barbed wire fence, ironically one that surrounds the grounds of a local church. The background is blurred red brick. I especially like the way the sparrow's claws are grasping the wire, they almost look like the knots formed by the barbed wire itself.

Critiques are most welcome. Enjoy!

Buddy's famous "pigeon stare" on a late winter afternoon looking west out the window in almost purrrrfect lighting conditions.

Enjoy! Comments and critiques are most welcome.

Lovely kitties, Fausto. They are very cute. Compositionally, I would have removed most the padding (or whatever that is) on the left or changed my angle to make it less conspicuous, as it takes up more than half the frame.

Buddy the Cat has his eyes glued to the pigeons in the tree just

outside the window. Taken in all natura light, hand-held, at only

1/10th of a second thanks to the A2's image stabilization ability.

 

Enjoy!!

While cat photos may not be your cut of tea, I think you'll like this

one. I only use natural light, often at low shutter speeds, so the

A2's image stabilization is a real god-send. I angled the shot to

maximize the short depth of field under these conditions, but didn't

frame it completely parallel on purpose for effect.

 

Enjoy! Comments and critiques are much appreciated.

To each his own, Stephane. I liked the color caste created by the lighting conditions, and chose not to correct for it.

Hi Stephane. There was no added toning. The color caste is a natural effect of reflected sunlight off the living room walls.

The warm reddish yellow caste comes from natural reflected sunlight

off the walls. Yours truly makes up the catch lights you see in

Buddy's eye. Enjoy! Comments and critiques are welcome.

Great work, Blagoy. A truly original catch in the best tradition of photojournalism. The bear looks wet, like it already had it's "bath." You have to feel sorrow for both the bear and its owner.

 

Could use a little burning in of the ocean on the right side.

He DOES own the world, Regina.

Lovely subject and nicely posed with a soft and enticing expression, and an ideal eye-to-eye camera angle. My only complaint is the strong backlighting and resulting overexposed background and slightly underexposed foreground. Some Photoshopping would go a long way towards fixing these shortcomings.

Guaranteed to bring you a smile. It was getting quite dark and 1/30th of a second was the fastest shutter speed I could muster. Squirrels stand up like this and clench their "fists" to make themselves seem larger and tougher, and so they can see further away when they feel threatened. I managed to call her (this was a female) over to me, pretending I had some food.

I was standing on the steps to my roof, but only with my head just above the ground level. So they don't feel as threatened.

Hi Maran. You have to grab these types of shots where the cat lies. The background color is easy to change in PS, but I went for the natural look here so as to not have another color compete with the subject.

Buddy "Bogarts" the new futon couch, and readies himself for a nap.

Comments and critiques are much appreciated.

Actually, you are partially correct. This critter does appear to have 5 legs. But I checked again and this is definitely the same bug in both photos. I also have a third photo taken on July 10 of the same bug. In the photo on the right the larger leg is folded behind it itself at an angle so you can only see part of it.

 

It must have lost a leg or was born without one.

??? I can clearly see four legs in both photos. And I can assure you I carefully checked the markings, this is the same bug that has visited these flowers for more than a week.

Two shots of the same baby grasshopper on different days (July 5th and 6th) on the same flower! You can see how much progress it has made in devouring it. I also shot this same bug on July 10th. It was identified by the patterns of tiny black dots on the body.

Important: Best viewed in the large size format.

Lovely subject with an expressive pose and a very creative compositional presentation.