Eastern American Toad found at Huntley Meadows Park in Virginia. Found him under a log. It was still a little chilly and he was acting sluggish and a very good model. I propped him up on a shard of log and started shooting away...
Shot using Canon EOS 300D with a Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro Lens
Adjusted levels
Darkened and blurred background
Added a little more blue and cyan to the entire image
Bumped up color saturation somewhat
Burned a few hotspots
Unsharp mask
Crop
Resize
Statistics
Place: 7 out of 160 Avg (all users): 6.9848 Avg (commenters): 8.6296 Avg (participants): 6.7475 Avg (non-participants): 7.2245 Views since voting: 2124 Views during voting: 336 Votes: 197 Comments: 36 Favorites: 4 (view)
Thanks everyone! I spent about 3 hours in the rain, crawling through mud to get ths shot of this silly toad...
Nice catch Gatorguy...It was chilly and he was pretty much a perfect model...letting me put him wherever and staying for a while. I hope I didn't stress him too much...he calmly hopped back under his log when I put him back so I think he was ok with the whole ordeal... :~)
Great shot! I really like the position of all of the elements of this photo. It's very appealing to the eye. I think this would be better if it weren't quite so dark, but it's still a great shot. (And you have to love the expression on this guy's face!)
Great expression on the frog's face. Good texture in the wood and the frog's skin. I think this could be brought out even more if there was more light . 9
Returning for additional comments: The one thing that bothers me is that this wouldn't usually be a natural position for an American toad - being terrestrial in nature. Did you find him like this, and if not how did you get him to stay there? The way the belly skin is up over the wood suggests that it was placed there from above. I still like the photo though and am giving it a 10
great capture. one of my top picks for the challenge. i think i would like it more if the closer, blurry piece of wood was cropped out (i think losing that would not take away from the image).
A possible top 5 I'd say, excellent compostion, great subject and well executed. The background is a tad too bright for me (takes away focus on the subject) 10
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