What changed: It is an understatement to say this is a revised shot. Its brighter, more colorful and more uplifting I think. The mantis is sharpened. I cropped a bit further out to give room below the reflection. And I darkened and desaturated the stick so its not distracting. Have at it. LOL.
Added after receiving feedback from the community.
The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
welcome to my macro studio. This is a friend I raised from hatching. I just wanted to have something that made the mantis sentient. Of any insect, they seem to give off this vib anyway. One reason I love macro is that the shots are like a fantasy world to me, so I just made up some of the fantasy…
Feedback Requested
cropping. Perhaps I should go vertical. I saturated freely, after all, its fantasy. I had already back lit him, so mostly just darkenedd the surroundings to accentuate that. Any and all feedback is welcome.
Technical Details
Just used items around the house to create the environment. Then let him do his thing.
What a great idea to create a controllable environment for your hatchlings. Send me a box of them, would you? LOL, seriously, I’ve NEVER seen a wild mantid and I spend a lot of time outside looking at very small things. So color me green over this photo.
It’s a delicate scene with the foreleg just touching the water and the backlight making it seem to glow from within. I spent an undue amount of time looking at its perch though, wondering if it was barbed wire. Maybe something else as a perch would eliminate that response. Is it actually blue? I love it even if it is exaggerated since it is on the opposite side of the color wheel from yellow and so highly complementary. I’m also not 100% sold on the placement with so much empty space to the left. It feels a tad tight on the bottom too.
So much potential with your set up. A nice head turn and sharp eyes can definitely be achieved and with that light, it’s bound to be a winner. Looking forward to seeing more of your “babies”.
Beautiful light, beautiful subject. I’m not sure if it’s just the web compression or not, but I’m seeing the head of the mantis as out of focus. I’m not sure what you were shooting at but perhaps a smaller aperture would have been better here, just to get the important areas in better focus.
A wonderful setup, Steve. The pose is perfect with the one foot in the water, and I love the lighting. If you have it, I could see a touch more room on the bottom. I’m pretty comfortable with the amount of room on the left, so I don’t think I’d go vertical with this. I agree with @zack1 that the mantis head looks a bit soft as do the antennae, so a smaller aperture might have helped. However, since you billed this as fantasy, you may have intended a soft focus look.
Steve, the mantis and it’s near perfect reflection make a neat photo, especially with the backlighting. While I could see a square or 4x5 crop as possible, the extra space and gentle colors on the left add well to the inviting scene. The head and eye do look a bit soft.
Steve: What a wonderful concept and superb execution. I see the softness on the head that the others mentioned and us technophiles tend to look critically at that for a straight macro shot, especially the eyes, but here I don’t notice it so much because of the mood of the shot, the colors, the comp and the lighting which are all really fine IMO. What you might consider is to apply a light oil paint texture to the entire image to mask the softness. Count me in with those who like the room you have on the left. Overall this gets a solid A+ from me. >=))>
Very artistic attempt at this tiny mantis. For insects, the eye is the most difficult feature to get tack sharp because of all the facets and transparent lenses present fools both camera and eye. Like others have mentioned, the eye and head are slightly softer, but only noticeable when looking at the larger version. The studio technique is excellent and the result is a very artistic interpretation of the manid’s small world. Well done…Jim
Hello Kristen, once you spot one, you will probably see them all the time. They really blend in. Thank you for the input. I did a revision. We will see how that goes–its quite different.
Thanks for all the detailed input on the image. I took it all to heart with a new version.This site is costing me so much time in post processing shots! LOL.
Those are kind words Mark. An A+ from you means a lot. While not ditching the first version, I did do another take which I think should handle the softness.
Hi Steve
The revision is quite different - much more can be seen of the insect detail, but some of the atmospheric misty colours and detail of the shadow in the original have been overpowered.
I do like the revision for detail and wow factor, but for me personally I loved the atmosphere and narrative of an early morning light toe-in-the-water.
This is my entirely personal feeling - well done on fantastic idea and execution(s)
Thank you Hew. I can’t argue. I like both versions, but I do seem to be getting moe WOWs on the 2nd. LOL. By the way, I shot this with a 200mm nikkor lens, f5.6, ISO 200.
-meter spike from the revision. Exceptionally fine work> >=))>