Hip Coyote

This is a bit of a variation from the protocols of this section, but thought it might be fun. This photo I took and post processed was submitted to my photo club's monthly meeting for evaluation. We rank photos from 3 to 9. 8 and 9 are considered high merit, display worthy photos.

You are welcome to weigh in on the photo in any way you want. After a while, I will share with you the comments (as best I can remember) of the two evaluating pros.

Please, NO REPOSTING on this one.

One hint, there is something on this photo, that once mentioned, I cannot NOT see that needs "fixin'" Also the file is small because I am away from my photo stash at the moment.

Hip Coyote

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

Interesting Photo. I had to stop and look at it for a bit to realize there are 3 zebras in the picture. If one stops to look for any length of time it then I'm my opinion it's a quality image worthy of merit. I'll be watching this thread to see how other value your image.

ahudina Loc: Browns Point, WA

I would reverse the image so the subject starts on the left side of the frame and reduce some of the white area.

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

I wanted two see if I would agree to your suggestion "reverse the image". When I tried it, it looked like the cropping was wrong with too much of the image missing. With the image the way it now I had my eyes flow from left to right.

Hip Coyote

Ok folks, here is what the pro said...they liked the photo, the composition, the background, that it was in black and white, in focus, etc. What they immediately commented on was that the frame that I put around the shot detracted from the picture...it was too wide and distracting...once I heard that I agreed.

Another shot that same night had much better framing...more subtle. So, i will re do this framing to be a bit more subtle and see what it looks like.

For those of you who find it interesting, here is the uncropped version. My wife and I went round and round on this one..should I present the full pic or the cropped one. The other thing is that i shoot M43, so the sensor size is quite small...making cropping difficult. in this case, I did upsize it to crop it and it seemed to have worked.

(Download)

Tjohn Loc: Inverness, FL formerly Arivaca, AZ

Seemed out of balance to me, too much white. Cropped out white to 4x5 ratio, verticle.

Orphoto Loc: Oregon

I think TJohn is on the right track here. My own sense is to lose a bit more of the empty sky above.

The background heat shimmers is a very unusual and effective way to single out the heads. I prefer displaying the parts as opposed to the original whole documentary view. If you want to have some fun, try this same treatment with just the front legs!

One of our regional head scratchers is the apparent obsession with borders by clubs in the eastern portion of the country. Aside from a few very dark images that could use help defining the image edges, you can almost always get by better with ZERO border.

Hip Coyote

Hip Coyote

BTW, these are all female zebras. You can easily tell in that the females are black with white stripes. The males are white with black stripes.

Good suggestions all and may mess around with the image a bit for fun.

Heather Iles Loc: UK, Somerset

It is a photo that you can't study for long as it hurts your eyes. I will wait to hear your verdict at the end.