Chicken feather and cedar twig on blue crushed velvet.
Special thanks to my son Isaac for suggesting the boom adapter for the tripod -- will post link to setup shot when voting is over.
- SuperMacro Mode/tripod/timer
- Incandescent floor lamp/Tungsten White Balance
- Cloned out the tips of a few stray needles at the top-right
- RGB Curve
- Cropped a little from right
- Cropped from bottom to 3:2 ratio
- Resize for DPC
- USM at 12%/48 dia/TH = 0
- USM at 88%/0.8 dia/TH = 5
- SaveAs JPEG at quality 8/10 = 147kb
•Added post-challenge•
I thought about this shot throughout the week, but only set it up and shot it in the last hour before the deadline.
In addition to the "quiet" zen theme, I wanted to introduce a yin-yang element, of opposites in harmony (or at least peaceful coexistence), thus two objects of similar topology but opposite textures. I chose the title for the same reason.
Technically, I wish I'd had a better twig I could arch over the feather, but I was pretty happy with the lighting and detail on the feather.
Statistics
Place: 262 out of 329 Avg (all users): 5.0283 Avg (commenters): 5.1667 Avg (participants): 4.8571 Avg (non-participants): 5.1963 Views since voting: 1226 Views during voting: 277 Votes: 212 Comments: 11 Favorites: 1 (view)
I think you are a victim of the shot being too cerebral. In the average 3-5 seconds the voter looks at a shot they aren't going to pick up on the contrasts between the prickly needles and the soft feather. People were also likely keyed into "tranquil or silent" part of zen due to the challenge description.
The focus and lighting are well done. You capture nice detail in the feather. The composition is perhaps a bit static. Not to exciting. I think the overwhelming 5's show people appreciated the technical quality but didn't care for the subject.
I like the idea but i'm put off by the crushed velvet. just makes anything look a bit cheesy and cheap. If this were on a smotth fabric I think it would have done better. and maybe if you could have clipped off the yellowish parts of the feather. lighting is great though and it's sharp enough. hope that helps.
Here's a link to the resized but otherwise unprocessed original:
Here is how I set it up with mini-tripod on the handle of my big one:
I thought about this shot throughout the week, but only set it up and shot it in the last hour before the deadline.
In addition to the "quiet" zen theme, I wanted to introduce a yin-yang element, of opposites in harmony (or at least peaceful coexistence), thus two objects of similar topology but opposite textures. I chose the title for the same reason.
Technically, I wish I'd had a better twig I could arch over the feather, but I was pretty happy with the lighting and detail on the feather.
I really like this image. The textures to be seen are fantastic. The color choices work very well together and the contrasts are many and bring much interest to the image. I personally don't feel much zen when I look at the image but I think its very well taken and your subject choices were well composed and chosen. I think the lighting is good and the focus looks good too (though a smidge soft on a bit of the foreground in the feather). I really like your choice of background. I think the reason I'm not making a zen connection is also one of the best parts of the image - all the different textures. I think its possible to have zen with a lot of things going on in an image but this one just didn't click with me. Still its a great rendering technically and compositionally, I gave a 6
I like the b/g and the feather but would have been tempted to lose the foliage and concentrate on just a slightly off centre shot of the feather and b/g (MHO)
I'm missing the connection here I think...and what does the title mean? Is the Lion the evergreen branch? From the thumbnail I thought the blue was moving water (the wrinkles look like water ripples at thumb size). Probably don't have enough negative space (subjects are filling the frame) for the Zen group. Anyway...best of luck in the challenge.
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