I felt kinda bad that my lovely Tour Eiffel shot did not have a discernible pigeon (although I am quite sure that somewhere in that photograph there is a pigeon.) So I spent some time trying to find the right pigeon shot to enter for the FS. I had one all picked out - a contre jour pigeon shot taken at the Louvre, a French-named type of shot taken in France! But then I was wandering about Wiesbaden with my Lensbaby on a nasty gray day and the pigeons in the square were doing their formation thing. And since it was a Lensbaby side challenge month, this seemed kind of fitting. Of course, if I'd had any sense at all, I'd have hidden the swing Lensbaby shot earlier in the month... Ah well. I like this one, too. Hoping for a 4.9 or better! :-)
The contre-jour shot (or at least one of them):
The swing shot:
[Dec. 7th, 2009 05:27:13 PM]
VERY pleased with how this is doing. Quite delighted with the comments and the favs - thank you very much!
Processing is the Holga preset in Nik Silver Efex with some tweaks, most likely.
Statistics
Place: 129 out of 366 Avg (all users): 5.9038 Avg (commenters): 8.0556 Avg (participants): 6.0531 Avg (non-participants): 5.5116 Views since voting: 1095 Views during voting: 98 Votes: 156 Comments: 28 Favorites: 7 (view)
You achieved what very few people have achieved. You made me like a lensbaby shot! I think I've only found 2 others that I've liked (for some reason, I haven't quite figured them out yet) I thought this one was quite fun -- it seemed kind of like an Alfred Hitchcock scene!
lensbaby? I LOVE it!! It feels so gothic, so hitchcock, just wonderful. my only complaint would be the grain. I like a bit but the only place i can really see it is the clouds.
Best image I've seen so far in this challenge. I can't articulate all the reasons I like this but if it doesn't finish in the top 10%, I'll have to kill myself. That being said, it won't appeal to every taste. Ignore your detractors!!!
I normally dont like shots of birds, let alone pigeons or seagulls, but this shot is outstanding. The noise, the OOF elements, and the dark and desaturated processing make this one a standout in the free study. Hope this does well.
I think but not sure...that this would be an example of "tilt photography"???...should have added "The" in front of Birds...this has that good'ol Alfred Hitchcock feel to it
OK, I'm going through the Free Study submissions, purposefully finding those images I think are shot with a less conventional eye - this is one of those images! Thanks for offering something that isn't just DPC friendly eye-candy (though of course there's nothing wrong with eye-candy). I'll be picking one of these images for the Mu (most underrated) award:
Positives:The overall scene holds together very well and I think the Lensbaby is the right tool for the job. I'm really liking the grain too. Also, I wonder how you got this shot - the timing is either highly fortuitous or you camped out - either way it makes for a great scene.
Critical stuff: There is a lot of blur here and I wonder if a smaller aperture ring might have been a little more effective - but then perhaps that would detract from the overall vision.
Overall: A most compelling image - it gets better and better the longer I look at it.
Nice B&W image. Like the grain and the lensbaby effect with the sweet spot in the middle of the mass of birds. Reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds".
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