the photo addict

Yes, it was taken aboard a plane enroute from GuangDong to Urumqi, the capital of the XinJiang Uygur Autonomous Region in Northwestern China. These ought to be the headwaters of the Yellow River.

Hi Laure,

 

You've made a good point. I have now cropped out the top inch and the picture looks better composed. Thanks for your feedback!

 

....Julius

Nice angle of view but somewhat cluttering. Good use of tree branches to fill up the void in the sky. However, the branches should never obscure the red bridge which is the centre of this photograph. This would have otherwise been a good landscape photo.

Nice shot of this gentle giant. I watch/read National Geographic sometimes and have seen this beast on TV. It is a filter feeder and its mouth is 12 feet wide! It would be rather difficult to use a flash to illuminate such a huge beast. I marvel at your bravery to swim so close to it.

Leo, I tend to think otherwise. The uncropped version has too much foreground (half page) which is distracting. In the cropped version, all the shrubs in the foreground occupies only 1/3 of the photo. The viewer's attention is drawn towards the blowing dust and the distant valley which is the most interesting part. This makes a far more concise composition in my opinion.

It was indeed a pity that the sun never broke through the clouds during those three days I was in Phoenix. I agree the lighting could have been better. My only wish is that I shall return in the not too distant future to shoot more frames in this well-preserved part of China, hopefully with better skills and gear.

I agree perfect symmetry sometimes is boring. I shot one of those at the base of this tower at night. I am not at all pleased.

Indeed Carsten, it is. I used f13 in order to get a large depth of field. A telephoto lens cannot achieve that.

I agree Jim. Somehow I am just not satisfied with the low position of the camels in this composition. I wish I had allowed more foot room.

Thanks everybody for the praises and feedback. I agree the highlights are blown out. I have since redo PS and updated the image. Let me know if it is better.

For comparison's sake, I have also preserved the old image below.

Hi Seven, This picture is not a composite. With the boat moving, it was not possible to bracket for exposure. But since I shoot RAW exclusively, I can easily achieve that bracketing effect at raw conversion time by varying the exposure compensation. However my PS skill is elementary. I still have not mastered the technique for constrast masking. I agree the illuminated portion of this photo is over exposed. It would be nice to selectively darken it.

 

I actually spent more than an hour there with my camera mounted on a tripod. As the light shines through a collapsed portion of the cave's ceiling, I had to wait until mid-day noon time to get this illumination effect. As evidenced by the boat loads of tourists, this is really a popular and well-known cave locally. I am sure other photographers had taken better shots of this scene than me. Now if only I can improve my PS skill.......

Randy, it seems you have missed the location information I left in the details section. YingXi township is located west of the city of YingDe next to Hwy 107, about 2 hours by car north of GuangZhou (Canton) which is the provincial capital. It took me five hours riding a tour bus north from Hong Kong. You will need to hire a local guide to find this cave when you get there. Good luck!

Thanks Martin for the feedback. I used a 280 mm telephoto lens specifically to obtain a large sun. The towers of the gas plant was used as forground to provide scale. As such this is the only slot I can fit in this large setting sun. I like the sun partially obscured than round. Let me know your view on the attached pict.

No Arthur, it is not water in the background. It is just grass on a slope perhaps well mown by the grazing sheep. Please see attached follow-up shot.

attached

No Leo, this is a one take. I shot this picture hand held while resting my camera on the opened window of my tour bus when it stopped. I almost deleted the original raw file as the composition was poor. I wish I had included more of the mountain as the view up that distant valley is what facinates me now.

Yes, I know of some PhotoShop studios that can creat these effects with ease. You have opened my eyes with unmanipulated shots like this one.

Yes David. In a way these poor ducks are like us here in HK scared of SARS. We feel helpless about our fate and yet we have to accept it and keep on living, hopefully a little longer than these amiable birds.

 

Their remote cousin, a chicken is in a even more precarious situation riding in the front of that very same motorcycle bound for market as witnessed by the attached photo.

Appreciate your sharing on sharpening techniques. You have convinced me that zoom lenses can be awfully sharp as well.

What an excellent use of foreground and depth of field. Very original in making an average park scene interesting. Good work!

Thanks Simone. That was actually the roof of a circular staircase. It was quite a bit of work to erase that. My PhotoShop skills are so elementary that I wouldn't know how to do that so seamlessly.

 

My sympathies to you, John. A whole life's work engulfed by ruthless fire. I am impressed by that "ice bead" shot of yours. You have far better technique than me. Now that you are shooting digital, you should back up all your precious work and store them off site. That would protect you from such a total loss again. The positive side is you now have another good reason to come back and revisit HK again :-)

Here is how it looks during the day:

Yes, I live 42 floors above that roundabout. Heeding your advice, here is the zoom shot:

This happened on the opening weekend of the TaiTakDey Fair. I was in the centre of the crowded food section with people packed all around me. It was not easy holding the camera steady without my elbow being pushed every few seconds. There was simply no space to pitch my tripod.