WET Task #33: Headshots of Animals

[EdC]

1. Levina
2. rdwp
3. pcs

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

#1 Patrick (pcs)
#2 Rob (RDWP)
#3 Jason (Jack Dawe)

 

[Jack Dawe]

1. EdC
2. pcs
3. Levina

 

[Jan1977]

#1 RDWP
#2 PCS
#3 Levina

 

[RDWP]

1. EdC
2. Levina
3. Pcs

 

[Terry McDaniel]

1. RDWP
2. Jan
3. EdC

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

Time to close the voting window.

Now we wait for Ed to tally the votes and declare the winner.

 

[Ed Will]

I believe it's now 24 hours since Levina (thanks again) closed submissions and opened up the voting. With 24 hours to vote, it's now time to determine the winners of this week's WET.

And I see Levina (with stunning efficiency) has beaten me to the punch (I was a couple of minutes late).

 

[Ed Will]

We had a lot of really strong submissions this week. In fact, until the last vote we had....A THREE WAY TIE!!! But with the last vote, we end up with the following results:

First place: RDWP (with 15 points)

Tie for second place: Levina and PCS (both with 12).

Congrats to RDWP. This week's WET contest subject is on you.

I will post some critiques of the submitted photos a bit later.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

I believe it's now 24 hours since Levina (thanks again) closed submissions and opened up the voting. With 24 hours to vote, it's now time to determine the winners of this week's WET.

And I see Levina (with stunning efficiency) has beaten me to the punch (I was a couple of minutes late).

LOL Sorry! I removed my post.

 

[Ed Will]

LOL Sorry! I removed my post.

No, no, no--keep it up. It's good that you closed it when you did (being in 'Merica the GMT thing goofs me up) and I thought it was a little funny that I thought I was being efficient and timely and oops--you were on-time when I was a bit late.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

No, no, no--keep it up. It's good that you closed it when you did (being in 'Merica the GMT thing goofs me up) and I thought it was a little funny that I thought I was being efficient and timely and oops--you were on-time when I was a bit late.

Okay, I unhid it. And you were not late, not at all. I was just my eager self.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

Congratulations to Rob for winning this week’s WET competition with an excellent image.

Congratulations to Patrick also for second place with another great image.

A big thank you to Ed for hosting. Great theme and only good images, making it very hard on the voting.

 

[greatgrandma]

i thought it was interesting that we had three bird entries for this - I confess I expected the photos of the dogs If I was going to pick a dog, it would have been Terry's because his coat was so amazing looking that I wanted to pet him. One of the other non-bird photo was the young giraffe and he was peering down at me so nicely. Like some of my giraffe photos he appears to be backlit, which puts his face in shadow. If there weren't other very nice photos I would have been certain to pick him.

Anyway, I loved the dragonfly that EdC posted and it was my favorite colors. I am not sure why I didn't put it first. But the squirrel was more 'human'. All the bird photos were great, but I felt that Levina's lacked a certain sparkle. I picked the Puffin over the pigeon just because I've always loved them and I couldn't figure out any other reason to pick one over the other.

I did not expect my entry to win or even get any votes because the monkey's expression was not appealing. Not ugly enough to be interesting

 

[Ed Will]

OK, I promised critiques of the submitted photos. No-one contacted me to say "skip my photo please--not interested in comments about it" so I'm including everyone. Again, this is solely my perspective.

Before making individual comments let me say that I thought the quality of all submissions was excellent. While the votes congregated on 3 (maybe 4 depending upon where you put the break), I thought all 9 photos clearly fit the competition guidelines, were technically good, and were entertaining/amusing.

GreatGrandMa--I actually thought that was a terrific photo (contrary to your own comments about that post). Technically it's good (just a headshot, no distracting background, sharp focus, good decision on DoF). But I also thought the expression was great. I've shot monkeys before and this is one of the better expressive headshots I've seen (or shot myself).

Terry--Terrific shot of the Dachshund eyes (very plaintive eyes!) but I wish the DoF was bigger so the nose/snout wasn't out of focus.

RDWP--Lovely headshot from a great angle. Maybe soften the lines of the shadow from the beak (I find the hard line of the shadow distracting) and dodge the right eye of the Puffin so it's not quite as dark.

PCS--I nearly made this one of my three choices. Tack sharp. Loved the "expression" on the face of the squirrel. The front claws were a bit distracting to me, especially from such an expressive face.

Jan--Loved the detail and expression on the dog (a Lab?). The hand with ball (with less focus) competes with our focus on the dog.

EdC--First, I wondered with so much of the body showed if this was a "headshot" or not. Second, it's a remarkable photo. But the crop means that much of the body is cut off. So I evaluated it as not a pure headshot but also a crop that cut off part of the critter. So I'd have liked either a tighter crop (just the head) or all of the body.

Levina--Outstanding detail and great contrast. I loved that it looked like it was in a studio (ie: completely white background from the snow). The photo--as is--is great. But a tighter crop gives us more of a pure headshot and the eye is so distinct I bet you'd get a lovely reflection in it.

Jack--great angle, great color, the eyes are excellent. I just wish the end of the beak was in sharper focus.