Photography forum winning images of the month — Round two 2015

Hi photo lovers,

In case you are new around here this is where the Admin (me) chooses one excel­lent photo nom­i­nated by other mem­bers from the Member’s monthly choice forum. Once 10 images are nom­i­nated, I choose a ‘winner’.

Just so it’s clear, the photo I choose are not nec­es­sar­ily the best ones of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. My goal is to sim­ply choose an excel­lent photo and talk about why I think it rocks. 

This round of nom­i­na­tions, once again yielded images of excep­tional qual­ity and I waf­fled for a few it was very dif­fi­cult to choose just one. This round’s win­ner is Late Snowy Owl for the GTA by Rdben­der. I chose these images for sev­eral reasons;

1 — Colour/exposure — The colour here was well seen with the yel­low sign match­ing the owl’s yel­low eyes and blend­ing into the yel­lowy back­ground. Expo­sure is well han­dled with lovely non-clipped white tones.
2 — Sharpness/aperture — The eyes look razor sharp as they should be and I really like the super-shallow depth of field that sep­a­rates the owl from the back­ground.
3 — Framing/composition — Unlike many com­po­si­tions that include words that become a dis­trac­tion, here the word ‘cau­tion’ on the sign com­pli­ments this com­po­si­tion big time. We see the owl’s direct intense stare as well as its sharp claws and we should indeed take cau­tion. I very much like the scratch marks on the sign that may well have been the result of those sharp claws.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for this round. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats again Rdben­der!

 

 Late Snowy Owl for the GTA by Rdbender

Late Snowy Owl for the GTA by Rdbender

Comments

  1. So, we spent May in Paris. Didn’t want to leave the 5th Fl of Musee D’Orsay. Think Met has bet­ter Manets, though. Over­whelmed by L’Orangerie. Photo show was over­looked by many. Photo museum had a Bel­gian pho­tog­ra­pher who printed big. Lots to see.

    My wife and I go to muse­ums, all kinds. Last year, we went to the Her­mitage. Need a month or a year for that place. I always look at the painted images like they were pho­tographs. Sculp­ture chal­lenges me the most, because of its three dimen­sional quality.

    But my favorite things to look at are por­traits. And, you can­not do bet­ter, right now, than the Met and the John Singer Sar­gent show.

    I only have so many shots left.

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