Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Use a tripod!

I like the concept of this shot, as originally taken. It is a seagull late into an oceanside sunset, backlit by a tidal stream with nice sunset colors reflected. If I'd have had the tripod with me, the shot itself might have been "enough" and I would never have played with it in Photoshop Elements like I did.

But the fact is, it had serious motion-blur issues. I decided one night to play with some of the special effects in Elements, and using "contours" I came up with this. Which I like. And I might use again some time, hopefully to even better effect. Point being, a sharp photograph isn't REQUIRED to produce an image that's pleasing to your eye. (I don't know if it's pleasing to your eye, but I like it, so good enough for now!)

The tripod dichotomy is a toughy - in lateral thinking exercises, maybe especially tough. You want to move the camera, change the horizon, violate some rules, etc. I like some of my tripod shots a lot, and I think I could demonstrate that if I had taken those shots without the tripod, it wouldn't have been as pleasing. That said, I don't use a tripod 95% of the time, or more. Is that wrong?