Buddha's Toes

[richb14]

This is a shot I took in Bangkok of the Resting Buddha, the swirls in the toes struck me as an interesting abstract photo.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/114/309284750_f8c9bb6a41.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/vicki-rich/309284750/)

I'd value any comments on:

Composition, too much or too little of the toes (it has been cropped for the original).
Is there enough context to make the photo interesting.
Lighting, the room was dark and given it was a temple it was difficult to do too much (eg: no tripods etc), any advice on taking these types of indoor shots wold be great.Warm regards

Rich

Camera: Canon EOS 350D
ISO: 400
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 18mm
Shutter: 1/60
Flash fired

[netbymatt]

I like your abstract idea for a photo here, but I find the reflections from the flash all over the place a little distracting.

By looking at the left edge of the photo, I can tell that there was either some very warm light in the room, or the gold from the statue makes it appear this way. I think you lost a bit of this with the flash.

I know that camera shake becomes a problem if you slow down your shutter speed too much, but doing this may have let in enough light to let you take the picture without the flash. There a rule of thumb that you shutter speed needs to be 1/focal length to make sure that camera shake doesn't show up. In your case, that would be 1/20th. Of course, that's just a rule of thumb. In my experience I've been about to get about a stop slower than that (1/10th in your case) when I'm at the wide end of the lens. I can usually cheat this even more if I can find something to brace myself or a camera against. A railing, wall, tree, or bench are just some things that I've used.

Good luck with the low light shooting, it's a challenge but the results can be spectacular.