tom_schonhoff

These bears live in and around Katmai National Park in Alaska. The population there is said to exceed 2000 animals. Because they feed on rich salmon every year, they are larger in size than the grizzly bears of the Alaska interior which are the same species but have a leaner diet.

Pulling shadow detail out of a midday full-sun shot is no fun, but I

ran this through Viveza and later Color Efex Pro 4.0 to get the final

edit. How did I do?

I really like the elements of this composition and the way they relate to one another. But this is a case where centering the image (along the vertical axis) would help. Its got a very natural bilateral symmetry interrupted only by the fork. I think I'd also 'shop out that little array of white dots to the left of the seated woman - distracting and easily turned black.

Shot a few of these in Kyoto on February 11 at a ceremony of the Agon-Shu

religion. Followers threw over 30 million prayers, each written on a bamboo

stick, into massive bonfires to the sound of Kodo drumming and new age

music. Capturing the whole scene from the "visitors" viewpoints proved

difficult so I went for prayer bundles entering the flames instead.

Shot a few of these in Kyoto on February 11 at a ceremony of the Agon-Shu

religion. Followers threw over 30 million prayers, each written on a bamboo

stick, into massive bonfires to the sound of Kodo drumming and new age

music. Capturing the whole scene from the "visitors" viewpoints proved

difficult so I went for prayer bundles entering the flames instead.

Shot w/D3s at ISO 12,800. Is the noise level acceptable in getting this

image?

No sweat - I didn't submit this for critique thinking it was "beautiful" per se, just that it was spectacular in the raw power that it documents. These volcano shots are really just documentary; we've all seen long exposures of flying lava before. But there's enough interest in the unpronounceable volcano that I thought I'd share what I'd seen and used the "critique" request as one way to get them looked at.

Soon I'll be making the same comments about my Greenland dogsled expedition photos. It's more nature photojournalism than art.

Shortly before sunset the lava being ejected from the volcano was leaving these trails

of ash - and rising roughly 500 meters before starting to fall.

One sled dog calling out as we were camped on the pack ice.

It's hard to get an expression out of a bird, but I thought this came pretty close.

It was certainly good for him despite the snarl. Even though it only lasted 5 seconds...

Digital color image shot in pre-dawn light, PS'd to greyscale and levels adjusted.

Of course I love the photo, the inclusion of the igloo particularly. Technically it looks like the same technique campers use to make their tents glow in night shots - maybe a simple lightbulb inside the structure.

 

However, I think the igloo overwhelms the aurora here and almost erases the most interesting impression (for me) in the image; the reflection of the aurora on the snowy mountainsides. If I could have taken this image (and I most certainly could not have done so...) I'd have set up hundreds of feet "back", making the igloo a tiny illuminated figure in the distant snowfield. For me this would render the landscape more dominant, cold, enormous and serene. With the igloo so dominant in this shot, it seems almost cheery and human-centric.

I like the feeling very much, but the wide angle lens distorts the shape of the glass - it's very distracting and for that reason detracts from the result.

Sorry, but I'm sooooo tired of seeing nude females with their faces covered or cropped to remove their individuality from the photo. You might as well say "I've covered up the unimportant stuff."

 

...sorry...

Seems like an ideal test of digital anti-aliasing. Does this suffer from "jaggies" in its full size?

...but what I find myself seeing are the details in the black and white buildings more than the color in the foreground. I end up reading the signs and scanning the windows. As for your intended message, perhaps it would work better if the girl was actively looking at the colorful products. As it is, she appears to be rushing past them without interest.

That's what I thought it was on first glance, that or a zygote dividing. It would be fascinating to pin a small version of this image against those and other similar compositions and colors, just to play with the tromp L'oleil effect.

While I love the light, especially the artful placement of darkness behind the head of the flower, ultimately the image doesn't work for me - and the reason is really just physics. When twisting perspective photographically one normally suggests that the viewer is seeing the image from an unexpected angle, which teases the senses a little. In this case however, the water in the vase is too strong a cue that the angle is a lie, and it defeats the illusion. I came to this picture excited by its rich color and strong composition, but left it feeling deflated.

For me, the added width of the image is particularly peaceful - somehow it lets the darkness and the blanket of snow settle more heavily on the landscape. A crop that eliminated the outhouse would strongly emphasize the verticality of the cabin roof and the trees behind it reaching toward the mountain peak. I think it would be an entirely different image and not what you intended. However, you might look at dodging the sky in upper right or burning the upper left a little so that the top margin feels more in balance and lessens the awkward dark patch of sky between the buildings?

This is very reminiscent of an often-reproduced photograph of a farmhouse fully engulfed in flames while firemen in the foreground visit some kind of roadside (produce?) stand. Does anybody remember that image and know where we can see it to relate? I don't think this image is in any way derivative, except in that life itself is derivative - and finding these common themes amuses and occasionally enlighten me.

I'm pretty sure that the model is showing not just a spectacular physique but also the unmistakable lines left by the waistband of a recently-removed garment. They pick up the raking light and add undesired lines to a very linear study.

You seem to have made a very smart cropping decision here (the unusual shape of the image being my only clue). The line formed by the pier aims right at the threatening storm - or is it the other way around? I love the way the eye tracks across this.

When I saw this in thumbnail form, on the same page as some Air Force photos taken in Afghanistan, I thought I was seeing a load of bombs falling from a B-52. It's a familiar image to those of us who grew up watching news footage from Vietnam and to find that it's really just birds in flight is very sobering.