Composition Opinions

[JohnKoerner]

I'm glad you wrote that, Mike, since it's exactly what I felt. #1 does give the best feel as an image overall but is spoiled for me by the overlap of the tail and the stem.
I always get worried when I'm about to disagree with Russ, though 
Jeremy
Edit: having now scrolled down to the bottom of the thread (I must control my itchy fingers) I'll vote for #4.

#5 is the clear winner to me, a nice clean vertical/portrait composition suits the subject and flowers very well, and as Slobodan indicates, leaving breathing room around the main object makes this an effective layout for illustrative purposes.
All nice shots, but definitely #5 gets my vote.
Dave (UK)

Thank you very much for your comments, Jeremy and Dave, I appreciate both of you taking the time.

All of this "nitpicking" has made me think more deeply about my compositions, and made me really feel unsatisfied with most of the 40+ shots I have taken (which is a good thing!) If I make it my business to take nitpicking to the extreme, I think I have to change my own vote to #2. My reasoning is it is the "cleanest" image out of the lot of them. Mike and Jeremy's pointing out of the tail disorder of #1 has now spoiled that image for me, LOL. I personally like the close "bullseye" shot for book purposes (because that is what I am used to seeing), but yet I am now noticing that the tip of the flower is cut-off in that one (I should have pulled back just a bit and included it).

With this added criterion in mind (namely a clean background with no clipped flowers), I feel #1 is likewise a little snug up top by the flowers--and clips them in half at the bottom of the foreground. So, to me, Numbers 1 and 3 have to be ruled out. If I re-examine Numbers 4 and 5, they also have clipped flowers--and while I like the layout of #5 a little better, I am less comfortable looking at half-a-flower lengthwise in #5 than I am looking at just the top of the flowers in #4. (For some reason, it seems "okay" just to see the tops of the flowers in the foreground of #4, but a blunder to see them cut-in-half lengthwise in #5.)

So I think it is between #2 and #4 now. Number 2 has to be considered the cleanest image, and yet the flower tops in #4 add to its dimensional feel, but I just don't like that clipped leaf behind them ...

Hmmm, at what point does a person become too nitpicky to enjoy his own images anymore?

Thanks again for the feedback!

Jack


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[aduke]

All nice shots, but definitely #5 gets my vote.

Dave (UK)

+1

Alan

[RSL]

Jack, I'll go with #5 also, though I think people are infinitely more interesting than butterflies.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I think people are infinitely more interesting than butterflies.

Ah, Russ, but you seem to forget there are at least two people present in each photograph: the photographer and the viewer.

Dismissing no-people images is like dismissing the whole opus of instrumental music, e.g., all the great symphonies and concertos, in favor of vocal music. Consider an image of a butterfly as a musical etude, where the harmony of nature's shapes and colors meets the photographer's harmonious capture, ending in a visual harmony, just like a musician is attempting to create a sonic harmony.

[RSL]

Well, somehow I missed Jack in the picture, Slobodan, but you've hit on something by chance: As far as I'm concerned, the greatest composer of all time is Giacomo Puccini, and he wrote a lot of what I guess you'd call "vocal music." I'm also very much attracted to the music of Joe Green (Verdi). But then, I'm also a serious fan of Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and several others in that vein.

Actually I don't dismiss no-people images. As you well know, since you've gone through my web, I shoot them all the time. But if I want to see great pictures of flowers I pick up a seed catalog, and if I want to see great pictures of butterflies I look up one of the books my lepidopterist aunt used to have all over her house.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Ah, Russ, but you seem to forget there are at least two people present in each photograph: the photographer and the viewer.

Dismissing no-people images is like dismissing the whole opus of instrumental music, e.g., all the great symphonies and concertos, in favor of vocal music. Consider an image of a butterfly as a musical etude, where the harmony of nature's shapes and colors meets the photographer's harmonious capture, ending in a visual harmony, just like a musician is attempting to create a sonic harmony.

My thoughts exactly. Thanks for expressing it so well, Slobodan.

Eric

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Well, somehow I missed Jack in the picture...

What, you did not notice that delicate flower in the background?

[RSL]

Well, I saw it, but since it wasn't wearing a gun I didn't realize it was Jack. 

[JohnKoerner]

+1
Alan

Thanks Alan. I just finished Photoshopping-out the offending flower in the foreground, while leaving the clean flower in the foreground, and this amended version is now my favorite as well.

Jack


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[JohnKoerner]

Jack, I'll go with #5 also, though I think people are infinitely more interesting than butterflies.

Thanks for your vote, Russ.

Your opinions on people versus butterflies (or nature in general) are yours, however, and certainly not mine. I know you prefer street photography, and that's fine, and (while I privately consider photographing people without their concent as intrusive) I still try to see "in it" what you as the photographer are seeing. Hopefully, you can see the beauty in the photos I took too.

Since you want to compare what is "interesting," the truth is I can see and photograph hundreds of people a day if I want to go to the city (yawn), while from a novelty perspective I haven't seen a Zebra Swallowtail in weeks ... and a perfect specimen like this in months

As far as the "spiritual" experience of photography goes, I would venture to say that most people find a deeper sense of serenity and peace in nature than they will ever find it within big cities full of people. Honestly, I consider most street photography to be a sad commentary on humanity. As Nietzsche said, "I fear that the animals consider man as a being like themselves that has lost in a most dangerous way its sound animal common sense; they consider man the insane animal, the laughing animal, the weeping animal, the miserable animal." And, almost without exception, most "street" photos merely provide a sad testimony to this fact.

I much prefer to enjoy the beauty and harmony of nature

Jack


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[JohnKoerner]

Ah, Russ, but you seem to forget there are at least two people present in each photograph: the photographer and the viewer.
Dismissing no-people images is like dismissing the whole opus of instrumental music, e.g., all the great symphonies and concertos, in favor of vocal music. Consider an image of a butterfly as a musical etude, where the harmony of nature's shapes and colors meets the photographer's harmonious capture, ending in a visual harmony, just like a musician is attempting to create a sonic harmony.

Well said.

Russ' views are exactly the opposite of my own: I consider any evidence of humanity in a photograph to be a negative (pardon the pun)

Jack


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[JohnKoerner]

What, you did not notice that delicate flower in the background?

Well, I saw it, but since it wasn't wearing a gun I didn't realize it was Jack. 

LOL, don't you old phogeys have anything better to do than pick on me?




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