I feel like I've been entering nothing but birds, but I've had little time to go out and shoot and these subjects come to me.
This was shot from a seat on our deck looking up at a small plastic feeder hanging from the gazebo covering us. It's an unusual angle for a hummingbird and I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to use it.
As for the texture, the quote I used made me think of not just a photograph but a frame from a motion picture, and the scratched texture is meant to allude to the grab from a frame of movie film that's been seen over and over again in motion but not as the instant captured in a single frame.
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Congrats on the Yellow ribbon Jake. I really like this image and think the texture and blur gives it that extra something to make someone stop and take a longer look; I did.
Congratulations on the Yellow, Jake. I enjoyed reading your Notes. I think you achieved your idea. The hummingbird looks like it's flying right out of time.
Congratulations on the ribbon, but I think it could have been even higher without the texture. If possible, can we see the original without texture? Maybe it will show I'm wrong.
This is going to sound somewhere between completely arrogant and slightly antagonistic, so please forgive that up front because that's not my intention, but your comment has become the vehicle for me to speak on the purpose of my photography and assumes that one of the reasons I made this photograph was to score high from the forty-something voters here.
I have hundreds (literally) of hummingbird photos from this summer alone and 13 usable ones from the ten seconds that this guy buzzed around the feeder. If my intent was to make a pretty bird photo I would have, but it would have been just that and for me the purpose of the challenge was to tie an image to a meaningful photographer quote. As I've explained above, the texture and blur was added to evoke the feeling of "an instant out of time" - a split second that literally stood out of time. We've all seen old 16mm movie film grabs with their scratches and spotting and I wanted to convey the idea that this was a moment that exists only in that frame and nowhere else, and unless you look at it singularly it's just a repeated 10 second blitz of blurred wings at a feeder. I think it speaks much more succinctly to the Lange quote, and if the treatment means that it cost me a point or two from you and others I suspect the lack of treatment might have done just the opposite for those who saw it as intended. I'm proud of it, regardless of how it did here, because it was shot and processed with singular purpose and preconceived vision, and it was well received by photographers I respect - which has much more to do with the comments than with the finish position.
Again, no offense was taken by me from your comment, and none is intended.
And since you asked, here is the photo before B&W conversion and before adding texture and blur.
Congratulations on the ribbon, but I think it could have been even higher without the texture. If possible, can we see the original without texture? Maybe it will show I'm wrong.
I love how you've almost filled the whole frame. The frozen moment is very special. I don't think the texture actually adds to the photo this time though.
One of the few fairly parsimonious quotes, and one I agree with. Nice capture of an instant of time. How many tries did it take to get the wings straight out? Great lighting.
"Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still" - Dorothea Lange
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