Karen Botvin
May 2022 - Wading Ducks
Original
About the Image(s)
I made this image at McKee Botanical Garden, which is noted for their water lilies. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an over abundance of water lilies when we arrived. The overcast weather turned to a brief rain shower as we walked through the garden. I found this pair of ducks who were enjoying the shower. I shot this with my Nikon Z7 with a 105mm macro lens. Remember the waterlilies?! ISO 800, f/5 at 1/640 sec. I love the reflections from the bank of green palms and the array of lily pads across the water. This is a fairly hard crop. I adjusted the exposure, reduced some of the saturation of the greens added a slight vignette and ran it through Topaz DeNoise. Comments are welcome.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
6 comments posted
Karen, Glad we had a chance to meet up at the St Augustine Birding festival.
I like this image a lot. I love the reflection of the ducks as well as that of the foliage on shore. There is a natural circle of light in the water, just beneath the ducks, that adds a great deal
The 3 stalks entering the image in the upper left are a bit of a distraction since the geometry of these stalks is completely different from the rest of the greenery. Posted: 05/02/2022 09:34:23
I like this image a lot. I love the reflection of the ducks as well as that of the foliage on shore. There is a natural circle of light in the water, just beneath the ducks, that adds a great deal
The 3 stalks entering the image in the upper left are a bit of a distraction since the geometry of these stalks is completely different from the rest of the greenery. Posted: 05/02/2022 09:34:23
Thanks, Jim. Yes, it was good to meet you in person. Glad we had some time to chat over lunch. How'd you like that light box at the car museum? Pretty fantastic, I think. I saw those three branches on the left with their foliage in among the palms. I didn't try to get rid of them b/c I was afraid I'd screw up the palms. They are a bit distracting so I will try some more editing. Posted: 05/02/2022 09:46:25
I did like the overhead lightbox at the car museum. When I was there Wednesday afternoon there was a vintage yellow Corvette beneath it. I got a few nice images of it, as well as "creative" shots of other cars throughout the museum. It was fun. Posted: 05/02/2022 10:31:48
This is a great image, Karen. It is so vibrant and simple. Well done.
Despite agreeing with Jim about an odd number of similar objects working best, I think two ducks works well in this case.
Well done! Posted: 05/02/2022 20:03:17
Despite agreeing with Jim about an odd number of similar objects working best, I think two ducks works well in this case.
Well done! Posted: 05/02/2022 20:03:17
Karen, what a beautiful capture. I like how the ferns spotlight the ducks almost as if the ducks are on stage. I would only suggest trying to do even more cropping to eliminate some of the darker areas to put more emphasis on the ducks. My suggestion would be to crop the left side to the ends of those three branches, just a little off top, and to also crop more of the lower water--perhaps almost halfway between the ducks and lower edge. Your image is beautiful as is if that doesn't work. Posted: 05/03/2022 14:13:36
I like your use of negative space. I have a tendency to crop but leaving space while the subject is placed on a 1/3 junction looks good. The lighting of the foliage leads the eye to the left, and the direction they are heading. Great image! Posted: 05/05/2022 12:31:26