I played with light and dark and some blur in the background.
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Ben,
Your vision of light and composition continues to impress… this indeed gives the impression of a bird in flight and for fun if you removed the main connecting stem, you could have this levitating as well!
My suggestions are on the technical side. And as a reminder, it would be helpful if you included some technical information. Especially here since there is a softness/focus issue with the fern. Is it a shutter speed or a depth issue? Was there a breeze? I’m guessing a combination of both a shallow depth of field and being in the dark forest, not enough light for a faster shutter speed. Guess I’m just wishing for a bit more sharpness at both ends of the fern.
I do like that the flying fern is supported below by the other ferns. Those being soft, as well as the bg forest being soft work beautifully. If anything, I would back off on the saturation and lighter values in the ferns at the bottom simply to bring emphasis back on the flying ferns above. The forest is rendered nicely btw.
Love this scene and photograph. Just wish the fern was a bit sharper. Some times though, the winds just don’t cooperate.
Lon
I can definitely see what you are wanting to convey with the shape of the fern. In general I like your choice to use shallow depth of field to blur the background. I do find myself wanting more of the ferns in focus though.
Ben, my comments mirror those of Lon, you have wonderful eye for working creatively with light and composition, but it does have technical issues with the softness of the “floating” ferns. If those floating ferns were tack sharp, this would have been an absolutely brilliant image, it’s good as is, but it could have been even better.
Lon’s comments on shutter speed, wind and ISO may all be relevant. But to really have pulled off this creative exercise in selective focus, I would have shot from a tripod, taken one bracket at f16 or f22 to get the floating ferns sharp, and then taken a second bracket at f4 or f2.8, and then blended the two images together with layers in Photoshop. If you live to close to this location, I think it would be very worthwhile trying to recreate this image and get the ferns sharper, because the concept is just brilliant.
@Lon_Overacker @Ed_McGuirk @Brian_Schrayer.
Above all, I was not using my tripod. (at F2.8, 1/50, iso 640 24-70/ 2.8 lens at 62mm). That must go wrong .There was a little movement in the ferns. It was a bit dark. At 71 maybe my hands are a bit shaky. I know how I should do it but???
I tryed to make a image that is not so good, better.
Thank you for pointing me out on" how to". The next one will be so sharp ! I liked this comment so much !!
@Ben_van_der_Sande - I really like your vision here and agree it looks like a bird rising from the ferns. This is such a cool composition, that I agree with Ed that it may be worth trying to go at it again. While I don’t subscribe to the absolute necessity for tack-sharp fern ends, an alternative interpretation may be to let the wing ends have even more movement so as to give the impression of wings beating.
My only recommendation above what else has been said about the sharpness issues is to elevate the “bird” higher in the frame to give a sense of height, while leaving some room for it to fly! Cool concept on this shot!
Agreed about the vision, Ben. I really like how the shape of the “wings” mimic the shape of the “canopy” below it. I think this is very well seen and hopefully, you will come back to this same location again!
@Adhika_Lie, @Jim_McGovern, thank you for your nice comments.This proves how personal interpretation of an image is.
Well titled, Ben. Always fun to interpret images like this.
