Idea:
My mother has brought me that scorpion from Tunesia (because I'm born in November). It's been hanging on my wall since then, framed and behind glass, but then there were bugs in it so I had to red rid of the frame. The 'y' shape struck me out of nothing while I was reflecting what on earth would be a good letter for this challenge. I don't expect there to be many scorpions, even though there will be many 'y's. After all, there was not a single scorpion in the Zodiac challenge.
Setup:
After glueing the scorpion about 4 times (I dropped it, broke off a leg etc) I tried this leaf as a background. It's from a plant from the entrance to our house. I put it on one of those boxes where you can put film dias on to look at them with neutral light. The veins came out pretty well. Then I tried different settings to get the best lighting on the scorpion. I finally decided for this silhouette version, where the light shines through some parts, taking the emphasis off the legs, which distract a bit from the 'y' shape.
Post Processing:
Colour balance (-18/0/60 on midtones), Levels (darken hotspots a bit), Brightness/Contrast (0/+5), add thin black border, resize to 541x640, USM (0,65/100/1), save with 26% compression (that last part hurt).
Comments:
Wow, those details are a JPEG killer. I had to compress this twice as much as usually.
I had fun with the scorpion, although I must admit that I barely dared to touch it in the beginning and even kept in a box. Kinda silly.
I hope the glue is not too visible, and that nobody notices the missing foot.
Statistics
Place: 5 out of 270 Avg (all users): 6.8567 Avg (commenters): 7.9130 Avg (participants): 6.7385 Avg (non-participants): 6.9471 Views since voting: 3963 Views during voting: 464 Votes: 300 Comments: 35 Favorites: 9 (view)
This is awesome. As much as I detest scorpions, their shape is very alluring and the silhouette against the solid green of the leaf is just wonderful. GREAT JOB
Detail in the leaf is unbelievable - amazing for that. "y" was, as you say, confused by the legs etc. However, outside the challenge, a great shot (and a good one even within!). congrats.
I love this one. Original, creative, great angle for the shot. Love the color and texture of the leaf, and I LOVE the idea of using a scorpion as the letter. Great job.
Ah wow, gotta be in the top 5 for sure!! The detail in the leaves is great, and a close inspection of the scorpion shows bones (?) in the legs etc!! great image!
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