I tried different shutter speeds to blur the movement of Sam's tail, while showing the dog in sharp focus.
Turned out, the real trick was getting Sam to stay still for 1/60th of a second in a position where the tail was free to wag, and so appear blurred in the photo.
Crop; Adjustment layer for saturation; USM.
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Place: 272 out of 296 Avg (all users): 3.8860 Avg (commenters): 3.2000 Avg (participants): 3.4105 Avg (non-participants): 4.1412 Views since voting: 866 Views during voting: 398 Votes: 272 Comments: 12 Favorites: 0
Whoa, you got hammered on this one, no? I'm guessing you know the problem, certainly as far as the challenge topic was concerned - the invisibility of that wagging tail. I've really no idea how to siuggest an approach that would fix that - this isn't my field at all, clever things with shutter speeds, and all I can say is that you'd surely ideally need a very bright object, or at least brighter than it's surroundings, to leave a trail. Sam's tail appears largely black, and so that's just going to be invisible against any kind of light.
One element I think might repay some attention is that of saturation in your shot. Now - I think you've caught a certain kind of autumnal fading of light very well, especially whilst maintaining such detail in the dog's face, and there is also that suggesting of the bluness of the disappearing afternoon light which I find very atmospheric. From the file size and general sharpness, I have no doubts you're completely in control of what you're doing; but I'd bet you'd get a little more reaction from the general voter with more colour punch to your shots (or even perhaps less - black and white?) but with more contrast. Had you been able to show more richness in those greens and browns of the grass and leaves, I bet you'd have got a few more views - whether that would have attracted higher votes is another matter.
Ok I don't know what we are supposed to be looking at that is in motion here but if it is his tail well I think maybe you should have a little more of his tail actually showing first.!!
AWWW. Sweet face. His eyes are lacking any sparkle. I'd like to see the light better and maybe adjust curves to enrich the tonality of it. Good placement of the figure in the shot.
i dont see how the shutter speed has any impact on this photo. but ill give u the benefit of the doubt which I really don't think I should do. otherwise this is just a plain dog photo nothing particularly interesting to me. If you had the tail actually wagging or more of an expression, perhaps that would help.
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