A small group of Honduran White Bats nesting in a folded branch. This perspective is actually looking straight up at them (the one bat is looking straight down at me). These bats are not particularly hard to find but it is rather hard to find a pleasing leaf that can frame them. I posted two crops, with the wider one showing more of the leaf and the setting.
Specific Feedback Requested
I’d like some feedback on the crop and whether the tighter one works better as compared to the wider one.
I absolutely love the switched perspective here, along with the cuteness of these wonderful creatures. Had I not read your description, I surely would have thought they were sitting peacefully on the leaf.
Regarding your question of the wide versus tight crop, I think somewhere in-between would work best. The tight crop is a bit too close to the bats and places them too close to the center of the frame for my taste. Perhaps cropping a touch into the wider frame, as I have shown below, would be most beneficial. It allows for the bats to appear a bit larger but also maintains the directional lining of the leaves which help the eye to flow directly toward the bats.
Nice image Dvir, I like your original crop as I think it strikes a good balance of seeing the details on the bats as well as the environment they are resting in. Must have been a great find to see this.
Very cute capture, Dvir! I love how the bats are all cuddled together and then there’s the one looking directly at you with a slight smile! It makes it very engaging.
Love these little alien creatures Dvir. Fine job on exposure and focus. They are so striking against the green, and so fascinating and magnetic to the eye, that there’s no need to crop tight. They’ll carry all the green framing you can give them in my view. Only reason to crop would be to offer different shapes in your prints. They’ll work in everything from pano to square in my view.
Thank you for your reply Cody. I really like your crop as it finds a nice middle ground between the two options and brings the bats a bit closer while still retaining the sense of the environment. I really appreciate your input!
Thank you @JRajput@Allen_Sparks@Vanessa_Hill@brett_joslin for your replies (I was and am actually still in Costa Rica so a bit of a delay). I agree that Cody’s middle ground crop probably does the best job of highlighting the dynamic between the leaves and the bats while the original tighter crop does the best job of showing the bats.
I love this photograph! They are well placed in the frame, with a nice balance to the frame just as it is, without further cropping. Sometimes I think we try to improve on a photograph that doesn’t need it. It’s great to have the one bat looking right at you, and the pile of them is ‘cute’ but also tells a story of keeping safer and warmer by huddling together. Well done in my opinion!
Thank you for you reply and kind words Brenda! I agree that there is often this urge to try and keep improving an image and sometimes you land on the right balance from the start. I also agree with you regarding the story because with these bats there is always one bat on guard while the rest sleep and in the image the one that was on duty was keeping a close watch as I took the images.
