Feeding Frenzy

[yrh0413]

004523-Y12 by daniel.y?, on Flickr. EXIF: f/2, 1/240s, 35mm (50mm @ 35mm equiv), processed via Silver Efex Pro

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
Effectiveness and appropriateness of B&W treatment, square crop, composition, and timing

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
To portray complex layers of subjects, with individual subjects telling their own story

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
Late afternoon near Little India MRT station. Someone just dumped a handful of bird food on the ground and it attracted a big flock of pigeons.

4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
It was tough to shoot anything that moves on my Fujifilm x-pro1. I had my 18mm mounted when I approached the feeding pigeons but I find my lens too wide and it does not give me the isolation required. Swapped in my 35mm and by doing so I scared all the birds away. I got to my desired shooting position, held my camera at low level and waited for the pigeons. I took a few shots but this shot stood out in my library... This was the only shot I had that manage to capture human element amongst the feeding frenzy.

With all these subjects in place it seems like the photo is telling its own story: The passerby who was going somewhere; majority of the pigeons busy digging into their dinner, the pigeon at the far left has this curious look, and the swooping pigeons showing that the frenzy was far from over.

Looking at various shades of grays on the pigeons I decided to apply B&W processing on this photo. Played with the color sliders to give the human subject a little more contrast. Personally I think I made a right decision to go for a low angle + B&W processing.

 

[fastfocusing]

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
Effectiveness and appropriateness of B&W treatment, square crop, composition The subject is preferably to be in sharp focus. In this picture, the lower 1/3 is in sharp focus. At lower 1/3, we see only wings and asses. Above picture can has a stronger identity if the pigeon in flight is in sharp focus. , and timing

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
To portray complex layers of subjects, with individual subjects telling their own story Which are the individual subjects? Every single birds in the picture? - then these individual subjects have got to stand out. but in this picture, the heads are all hidden.

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
Late afternoon near Little India MRT station. Someone just dumped a handful of bird food on the ground and it attracted a big flock of pigeons.

4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
It was tough to shoot anything that moves on my Fujifilm x-pro1. I had my 18mm mounted when I approached the feeding pigeons but I find my lens too wide and it does not give me the isolation required. Swapped in my 35mm and by doing so I scared all the birds away. I got to my desired shooting position, held my camera at low level and waited for the pigeons. I took a few shots but this shot stood out in my library... This was the only shot I had that manage to capture human element amongst the feeding frenzy.It is commendable that you tried to capture images from various perspective. It is worth nothing that in photography, one of the many outstanding aspects that make the viewers say "wow" is pictures taken at various angles other than standing position.

With all these subjects in place it seems like the photo is telling its own story: The passerby who was going somewhere; majority of the pigeons busy digging into their dinner, the pigeon at the far left has this curious look, and the swooping pigeons showing that the frenzy was far from over.

Looking at various shades of grays on the pigeons I decided to apply B&W processing on this photo. Played with the color sliders to give the human subject a little more contrast. Personally I think I made a right decision to go for a low angle + B&W processing.

Fujifilm X-Pro 1 is an outstanding camera which cost 1/4 of the price of a Leica M9. However in terms of picture quality and saturation, from the reviews i've read, it is almost on par. Carry on shooting and you never know how far you can go.

 

[nitewalk]

Hi there, just a humble opinion. I felt that it is rather cluttered, of course, as your title suggests, you would want the scene not to be made up of single subject as you probably wish to portray a story within the cluster. For me, it doesn't quite help when you have the man walking into your frame. Just felt that since there is already so many subjects, somehow I notice the man and wonder what is his relation to the framing.

I love the angle and it really make sense to frame it low. However, I see lots of tails up and a couple of heads up and all I can deduce visually is they are eating and this is related to my daily experience of seeing birds feed. Yet, while the man keeps me wondering, the out of focus bird in the immediate foreground sort of makes me feel quite uncomfortable. I do like the descending bird and if I were to choose, I'd prefer a descending bird than a passerby.

 

[moveslikejagger92]

i also thought the picture is quite cluttered. would be better if some birds are facing the camera. felt it didn't really achieve what you hope for in the photo

 

[zaren]

can try playing around with selective focus to draw more attention to the pigeon in flight, and to reduce clutter.

 

[CZJena]

I try to make it simple IMO here:
1. Have you decided on the key subject?
Presenting photo this way causes audience to "make decision", "build association" between the man relation with the pigeon. Is there one clear one?

2. For me, i would either exclude the man totally or blur "him" from my image so much that he "seems" no concern to audience. You can always wait for man to move out, or steer away into another pleasing background.

3. You seems to be using a lens of wide aperture to get this shoot which gives you that DOF with clear focusing on the group of pigeon. So the question is have you notice the BIG pigeon in the foreground? Why not make it focused/clear when this BIG pigeon occupied so much space in your photo? To audience foreground almost always means ALOT unless very special perspective required.

4. Of course your argument can be: "At that moment, my ONLY concern/focus was at that flying object (& its wings), yet i was playing prudence, so i also included more than needed in case i isolated the flying object too much ..." So this becomes an aesthetic training challenge which require more practices and familiarization of your equipment.

5. Indecisiveness, wrong association (in-congruence), lumping too much non-related (hard to relate) objects together without a grand story, are easy ways to ruin an photo.

6. Always spend more time to study the environment and do more thinking to find a theme, and ponder the objects placement/perspective, before snapping. Its 2nd nature to me because of seemingly pains i went through with those days of taking photos with prime lens and camera without battery at all and every rolls of 36 frames cost me $20.

 

[Mustank]

i would prefer the focus point on the flying bird and in colour.

 

[moveslikejagger92]

that's a good way to portray the flying bird. would it be better if the bird appear bigger?