Teasel and spider webs

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

I have a love/hate relationship with this plant. I love the seed heads, but it’s also an invasive species here and there’s way too much of it in our wildlife refuges where it lines the roads for long stretches. However, the spiders had been out in force with huge swaths of gossamer covered vegetation Wednesday morning and I couldn’t resist isolating this specimen.

Specific Feedback

I removed the threads connecting it to adjacent teasel heads since I didn’t want to include them in the image. I also brought up the luminosity and saturation of the main body of the teasel head (too much?).

Technical Details

Sony A1, FE 200-600 + 1.4 TC @587 mm, hand held from car window, f/16,1/100, iso 2000, manual exposure. Processed in LR & PS CC. Cropped from a horizontal original, full height.Taken at 9:42 AM on November 8th under mostly overcast skies.

2 Likes

This makes for a nice image with the spider threads covered in water droplets. I like how you’ve isolated the teasel against a fairly uniform background.

Gorgeous!! Wonderful subject so well presented with fantastic detail. I thought it might be a focus stack, but you managed well without one. The needed DOF on these things drives me nuts and I have a trash bin full of deleted images of them. The light on the seed head looks perfect.

Spider silk is everywhere isn’t it? I think it makes a really fun contrast with the spiky character of the teasel. The background is so unobtrusive that it’s almost like you set up a drop cloth or something. Nice dimension & picky texture.