perry_yu

This is a single stalk of reed inflorescence floating on a swampy

pond. Still and stationary as it is, I cannot imagine it will ever

flow off or perish. A contemplation of the transient vs. the

permanent....

A tiny seedling of a wild flower plant along the mountain trail

which can easily be stepped upon by the trekker. One can't help

marvel at the pride in its posture which seems to defy its

vulnerability.

View of the sea from the cliff.... You can almost hear the quiet

ruffles, but not quite. Amazing colors and patterns....

The grace of a fallen leaf....

Here's the butterfly's cousin saying hello from Hong Kong :

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/2226432-sm.jpg

This photo strikes me as an almost surreal scenery that is beyond imagination. How can the shepherd and his sheep stay oblivious and unworried about the looming dark clouds and impending rainstorm? Without the open sky and the dark clouds, there wouldn't have been this strong impact on me. Hence the photo in its original form is very successful in conveying a subtle experience not usually encountered by many of us at PN who are urban or suburban dwellers. Our normal notion of a pastoral or rustic scene is that of a clear blue sky and bright colorful scenery. Floriana's photo has widened our perspectives on how we should and how we can achieve something different at any time.

Shall we say it's the cannon?

Seems like there are many interesting stories in this photo, but the size submitted is too small for me to explore.

Why does this soldier look perplexed? (I like the way the photo is slightly tilted to add to that perplexed look.) Is this soldier guarding the monument dutifully? Is he wary of the photographer's intrusion? It would help if the story is retold.

Juxtaposing the Bright-colored and the Dull, the Soft and the Hard,

the Temporal and the Permanent. Who rules? Thoughts and comments?

Thanks Jarin for your email below. I love birds too but have not had much opportunities taking their pictures. I suppose one needs much patience and a set of proper telephoto lens to get good bird shots from a distance. Pelicans are big birds and as you are a bird enthusiast, you may find a way of stepping into their colony unobtrusively and take close-up pictures of them with their beaks wide open and finally get the stunning shot you want. :-)

I looked at your other pelican photos you posted. I still like this one best. This pelican is so close and the way the photo is underexposed thrills me in feeling having met a flying dinosaur!

>From: jarin

>To: perry

>Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 11:12 AM

>Subject: RE: Pelican picture

>

>Thank you for your comment on my picture on photo.net. I have uploaded to my area a couple other pics I took that same day of sea birds in flight. Maybe one of them appeals to you. You can check them out at http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=969054

>

>Thanks again for the comment. Although I am learning more about photography as a travel hobby, I really want to learn to take stunning and interesting pictures. The pelican is interesting, now I just need the stunning....

Great abstraction effect with the tree shadows over the shed. I'd like to have the photo's bottom cropped so that the stone and its shade are not visible - they tend to distract from the main shadows falling on the roof and the vertical planks.

How often do you see the expression of a bird in flight? This is an almost larger-than-life pelican caught frozen in flight. I couldn't help admiring the bird's focused expression. The photo needs to be brighter and I wish the pelican was flying slightly higher so that its wings were all above the rocks in the background.

Could have used a bit more contrast and focus

Dwayne, striking colors you've captured. You share the same sensitivity to the trio of colors as I captured in one of my photos, and we've even captioned the photos exactly the same way!

Please view my Red, White and Blue in Malaca:

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/2231800-sm.jpg

You don't need the blue sky always, but you do need the bright sun to display the white properly.

I'd like to see sharper contrast to make this typical aerial view more captivating. Did you also inadvertently catch the window at the lower right corner?

Sorry Tom I haven't explained what this subject is all about for public critique yet but appreciate your comments.

This is a single-frond or single-leaf fern plant emerging from a tropical rainforest floor. It caught my eyes as the only green object within its immediate environs. The fern member of the plant kingdom has existed since nearly 400 million years ago. They survive in low light, low moisture conditions and perform a vital role in the complex cycle of living organisms. (Read an introduction to ferns.)

For this picture, I tried highlighting the fern from its dull brown background by converting the photo to a dark green monochrome and was pleasantly surprised to have highlighted the metallic sheen on the leaf surface as well. The shot was also slightly underexposed to recreate the proper mood one would experience on the forest floor. I might also have cropped the picture too tightly to put the fern out of a more proper context. I like the sense of age and permanence in monochrome, but I also lost the contrast in tone between the subject and the background. Here's the original colored shot for comparison:

/general-comments/attachment/1476092/P2050122b1469147.JPG

I was hiking up the barren slope of a steep hill and was about to

feel exhausted when I bumped into this radiating wildflower right up

front at the eye level. I smiled and regained all the energy I

needed to finish the climb! A most pleasant chance encounter, and I

didn't hesitate to bring out the camera from my backpack and fire

this shot.

The left tile column, the top shelf in the background and the man in blue are all distracting this viewer from the yummy snack production.

The special effect is commendable, but I find the "sun" falling off. Would "placing" it slightly up and off the right building be better? Also I don't like the distracting reflection image below the "sun".

One hears cicadas more often than one sees them. Some may find the singing of the cicadas a nuisance, but if you realize that they are singing only for a few weeks' time in their entire 17 years of life you'll have to give them some respect. The male adult cicadas came out from the ground after 17 years, emerge from their shells, sing to attract the female, then mate and die. Yes, cicadas are common in Japan. I came across this Japanese cicada along a garden path in a Japanese temple, in perfect silence for a change, and in perfect harmony with its natural habitat. The temple garden has stayed undisturbed for at least the 17 years of this cicada's earlier life, or you wouldn't see it at all.

Check out this wonderful web site Japanese Cicadas for more photos and hear them sing!

BTW, I got a email from Dr Yasumasa Saisho who builds the web site that the scientific name of my Japanese cicada is Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata(Motschulsky, 1866) (Japanese name is 'Aburazemi'). It is also one of the most usualcicadas in Japan.

Hi Phil! Sorry I didn't leave my comments when I first came across this shot of yours. I like the bottom half of the photo where the train and the rails form a striation pattern conveying the sense of rapid motion. One doesn't have to decipher that they are the train and the rails to develop that sense so the abstraction is fine. What I don't feel comfortable are the iron structures. I wish they were more blurred to match the abstract horizontal striation. The photo is also slightly tilted to the right, which introduces certain unbalance. (I know it's hard to do a perfect composition while one is also travelling at a fast speed.) I'm also not sure what the little foreground white and black spots are - they are distracting to me.

Comments welcome!

Should crop off the black patches at the upper left and upper right margins.

I'd use the triangular frame to trap the highrise tower and the skyline as much as possible, leaving much of the white sky out. The depth of field is now too shallow and the viewer will only look at the foreground structure but there is not much to get out of it. The eyes tend to glide along the slanted rod down to the lower left and exit the photo. The Chinese characters on the lower right seem to be the only interesting subject but if it is to tell some story, it should be placed more to the center. Adding an appropriate caption to the photo will help align the viewer to your story, if there is one, especially for almost surreal compositions such as this work.