On September 12, 2020, I started as a participant in the mentorship program of Nature Photography by famous Dutch photographer Bart Siebelink. I wrote about the second mentorship day in an earlier blogpost, see this LINK.
The second meeting was on October 2, 2020 held in Rhenen, the Netherlands. We needed to focus on animal "parts" in which a head and eyes could not be seen, to learn to look differently at a subject. I will discuss two photos that I took that day:
Title: Feather Fine.
Process: a compact pink pelican with several layers in the plumage. The beak shows little weathering.
Idea: the many shades of pink and a little yellow coincide with the colors of the beak. All feathers look perfect, really 'feather fine'.
Digital editing: the photo has been edited in PS Elements (dust, contrast, saturation). I applied the Levels (histogram) for a nice distribution of the dark and light areas, as well as a little bit of Shadow/Highlight. I cropped the image slightly on the right, because there was a small (unnecessary) opening here, which is too distracting in the overall composition.
What do I think of it? Rather successful. Afterwards, it is a pity that I had not used a higher aperture number (> F10) so not only the plumage would be sharp, but also the beak - which is a layer just behind the plumage (not entirely on the same focal plane). F14-F16 could have captured this just a little better.
The second photograph I will digress upon, is:
Title: Nail Salon.
Process: a pink pelican has a great beak, in particular for catching fish as a kind of scoop-net. However, the beak tip is very delicate, almost like a sharp, painted fingernail.
Idea: I wanted to highlight the delicate beak tip, which really, cleans every little feather to get rid of parasites and dirt. Most people know that pelicans have a huge "scoop beak", but don't know it has such a beautiful beak point. It gives a pretty and alienating picture if you really don't realize that this is a pelican beak.
Digital editing: the photo has been edited in PS Elements (dust, contrast, saturation). I applied the Levels (histogram) for a nice distribution of the dark and light areas, as well as a little bit of Shadow/Highlight. I cropped the image slightly on the left and the bottom, for a better composition.
What do I think of it? Fairly successful, even a bit "scary" because it reminds me of a long, sharp nail that has just been painted bright red.
Thank you for reading the analysis of the photographs! Till next time.
