This is a picture of a Lesser Spotted Shoe-horned squirrel. These can be found shoe-horning (hence the name) their way into completely unrelated challenges by means of a snappy title.
I was actually shooting for an entry for "fauna" but have decided on another shot for that challenge.
Predicted score, well lets just say I will be happy if it comes in higher than my overall average (about 6.14 I think).
POST CHALLENGE.
Thanks everyone for the votes and comments, this really was a last minute shorhorn as I went out with the kids on Sunday and fired off a few shots of the squirrels foraging, I didnt even think of the "searching" challenge at the time, this was going to be for "Fauna II", but when viewing them last week I thought "hmmm, well he could be searching" and to be honest the more I look at it, the less of a shoehorn it becomes.. still, cant moan about 5th place, congrats to everyone in the top 10!!
Admittedly it IS a lovely shot of one of these creatures, got loads more, might post some out-takes.
Statistics
Place: 5 out of 122 Avg (all users): 6.7755 Avg (commenters): 7.9375 Avg (participants): 6.5319 Avg (non-participants): 6.8900 Views since voting: 3998 Views during voting: 291 Votes: 147 Comments: 29 Favorites: 2 (view)
Hi from the Critique Club...Although I hardly think you need a critique on this image. ;) Here goes an informal, off the cuff reaction to your photo(more in the style of posthumous' 'Reaction' club.
The first thing that struck me when this popped up after the challenge ended was the rich brown tones. They do not look real, but I don't consider it a negative because the colors of the squirrel seem so perfect. (However, I know not your Epping Forest and the colors it contains so likely these colors are a perfect representation of the area.) The OOF areas are super and my only slight nitpic is that the nose of the squirrel seems to be just slightly soft, as if the primary focus plane is just behind his ears. I know these little buggers move fast so likely the softness is related to the 1/80. Blah, blah, blah, you know all this stuff.
Bottom line, I see it as meeting the challenge perfectly and was deserving of #5 if not higher. Good 'snappy' title, cute critter, and solid technicals. Long live shoehorns!
I never would have pegged this as a shoehorned shot! I think it meets the challenge quite well, and it's a great shot of a squirrel too! Love the autumn colors and the shallow dof. This was the the first challenge I've voted in a while, and this was one of my top picks. Congrats on the top 5! :)
The use of DOF here is outstanding, the muted tonalities of the image are flawless, the "pose" showing only half a face (feels like a sly nod to Librodo's veiled models) is outstanding. In no way does this image shout "shoehorning" to me; I think it's a very straightforward approach tot he topic. Granted, the squirrel may not actually have been searching for nuts, but he sure as heck LOOKS like he is, and that's the goal isn't it?
I figured we'd see quite a few of these. Lovely softness. I wish his nose wasn't hidden by the foreground leaves. I might've played with sharpen on the squirrel a smidge. Overall - NICE
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