davidnoeledwards

The trick is to provide the birds with food and then hide from them behind something that exposes only the camera's lens. Then wait for the birds to come. With pileated woodpeckers, unfortunately, it's possible to wait a lifetime. So I was thankful, to say the least, when this one appeared. (The truth is, I almost wet my pants.) Chris Gomersall's excellent book, "Photographing Wild Birds" is full of examples of this technique.

All comments welcome. (More shots of this bird at

www.studioedwards.com/photos/pileated) - Thanks for your comments!

Thanks for your comments!

Thanks very much for your comments.

Nice lighting. Unusually appealing.

Yes, it is a timber rattlesnake. It is listed as threatened in New York and endangered in Massachusetts. This one wasn't fiesty at all, just opening his mouth for some reason, and I was lucky enough to have my camera ready to shoot.

Taken in the wilds of the Berkshire Taconic Hills. Thanks for all

comments!

I took this shot in the wild at close range with natural light. I

confess to being a little bit impressed with myself for capturing

this scene. I hope you like it.

All comments welcome...

Taken in the wild, so the background is a little bit cluttered. Does

it work anyway? Thanks for your comments!

I wouldn't change anything in this photo until it came time to try getting on paper the same qualities I'm seeing on the screen.

Is it just me? Or is this woman's form the most interesting element in the photograph? Her uh... bottom grabs the eye more than anything else. No?

The droplet detail really grabs the eye...

I think this is some other kind of jay than a blue jay...

Holy cow, this is sharp! Well cropped, too! And the background is just dark enough... Nice job!

I love this photo on its own merits, but has anyone mentioned to you that is bears a resemblance to a scene from C.S. Lewis's "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe"? The lamppost makes a delightful surprise, and I like the way you composed it. Good work!

There is more mystery and drama in this shot than I see in most nudes, so I had to have a closer look.

Comments appreciated.

Francis, The way many photographers would "add" light to a photo such as this would be to visit the physical location at various times of the day and under many different weather conditions throughout a period of weeks or months. That's what Ansel Adams did routinely. Then, he would stand around for hours, waiting for the perfect moment to expose his film. Finally, he would refine the image further by dodging and burning in the darkroom, a process now possible in software programs such as Photoshop. I have taken a number of scenic photographs where the window of time for optimal lighting was less than one minute. Often, one must "haunt" certain locations in order to find the perfect time for shooting, which often turns out to be dawn or dusk. At the location of your photo, I'll wager that at a certain time of day you'll find just the right highlights appearing in the foreground and on the pine trees, which can be highly flattered by the best light. This is good work, though. I'd like to see it cropped so that the gap with sky is a little more left of center. You might want to experiment with that, using the rule of thirds as an initial guide.

Stands out as thumbnail quite dramatically from all other photos on the page, even before the subject is known. A strongly appealing image.

I love the way this was composed. There are, reportedly, some marriages that do not come to this.

True, it's not a photograph. It's simply an image that I enjoy looking at. But if it started out as a photograph, I'd like to know about the technique involved in its transformation.

This succeeds on two levels: It is sharp and accurate, as it should be for the record, and perfectly lit (pray tell, with what?). But it is also truly beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. That doesn't happen very often with spider photos, which I have taken quite a few of. As for originality... this photo is truly distinctive. Unique, in my experience. This sets a new standard for me in spider and bug photography.

If I were going to paint this, I think I'd leave out the top band of color and the tree trunks. Still, it is nicely done and easy to look at.

The funny thing about the "flaw" in the very middle: it is also the very thing that causes one to say, "Holy crap! This is an unmanipulated photo!" This will be the photo I use to give my daughter a lesson in composition. A seven.