Shelter From The Rain

[mrteacherdude]

This was one of the best of my efforts in trying to get some photos of a relatively small spider (~10-15mm) that retreated to the underside of a leaf when it started to rain one night last week. The photo has been processed from raw, and further processed with PSE9 in an effort to try to tone down the brightness underneath the spider from the flash; I neglected to diffuse the flash and the bottom of the spider came out a bit bright despite decreasing the flash output (don't remember how much though).

The lens gives me about a .75:1 ratio so the spider did not fill the frame. The crop seen here is between 1/3 to 1/2 of the original. The main goal of my crop was to get rid of as much of that green blob (apparently a leaf in the foreground) on the right side as I could. I'm not even sure why that green blob is there now as I don't recall seeing any leaves in the way when I was taking the photos, and I can see the end of the spider's leg through the green; reflection of some sort maybe?

I initially tried to bring out the spider's leg in PP, but didn't like the way it was coming out so gave up, thinking that maybe that little bit of green blob didn't look that bad.

So here are the questions:

1. Does the green blob need to go (I'm thinking that it does), or is it ok? If it needs to go, does anyone have suggestions to effectively do that?
2. Are the white areas on the bottom of the spider too bright and blown-out looking?
3. Is there anything that I have missed that I should be paying attention to?

Note that I'm already aware of the softness in some parts of the image due to shallow DOF, but if anyone see areas that could be effectively sharpened and ideas about how that could be effectively accomplished without looking "strange," then please let me know.

Thanks!



Exif Stuff:

Camera: Canon 7d
Lens: Reverse mount 50mm (an old Konica)
Shutter Speed: 1/200
Aperture: f/11
ISO: 160
Flash: Handheld 430EX (dialed down one stop I think)

[gturner]

I think it being upside down AND tightly cropped makes it strange. You need to somehow get more context to the image, or place the spider to the side a little.

The softness so close in is distracting to me, mainly because the softness/ out of focus areas, are the important parts of the spider.

There is no fix for that I am afraid.

[crockny]

I would say "yes" to all of your questions, the last one being that you seem to have a nice picture of spider butt - where's the head? I realize it's not always possible to get where you want to be but as it is there's not much to hold my interest and a lot of it is out of focus ...

[mrteacherdude]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate it.

It turns out that the focus on this particular photo is where I wanted it, which is on the underside of the spider and the small amount of its head that can be seen somewhat tucked behind the legs on the right side of the upside-down spider. But the feedback is valuable as it gives me a good idea about what people see first and how they see it. Being a biologist (in spirit and by training) tends to make me look at things a bit differently, in my experience, than most people I know. I have a strong tendency to record images for purposes of observation, documentation, noting patterns, etc. So my challenge often is to try to record the things that I see and appreciate the beauty of (I can see beauty in the contents of a trout stomach) in a way that others can experience and connect with as as well, even if it isn't intuitive. And that is the challenge, isn't it?

I tend to like this particular image because I know what I was seeing and experiencing when I captured it, and that is still in my mind. But ultimately it may be an epic fail from the points of view of others who were not there standing in the rain with a flashlight looking underneath leaves to see what was there.

Posting this shot was difficult for me to do as I knew it had potential for critique that would not be favorable, but that is how we learn and grow. I knew it wasn't immediately recognizable as a spider as it is not in the form that most of us encounter spiders, and so would not likely evoke a visceral response and may even be confusing. That's ok, it's good for me to know these things

@ gturner, below is the uncropped version of the photo I posted. I actually like it better myself as it lends more context to the image, but the big green blob at the right bugs the snot out of me. I am curious though, you mentioned that the "important" parts of the spider are too soft; what are the important parts? I ask this because I honestly don't know what people would consider to be the important parts.



@ crockney - thanks for pointing out that you would like to see the head. I always suspect that people would prefer to see a head, eyes, etc. As noted above, it's actually to the right side of the spider and kind of tucked behind the legs. The photo below is the same spider, but viewed from the head end. But I'm not even sure this would would do much as it is upside down (under the leaf), and is also totally unedited at this point and needs some work.



Thanks again. If anyone has anything else to add, I would appreciate it.

[tekandthebaron]

The head-on photo is much more attention grabbing. I can't really speak for the technical aspects, but I can say I prefer image 2 to image 1.

[crockny]

Well I see where you are coming from, but you will never get me to appreciate the contents of a trout's stomach! The second picture is much more interesting to me and "spider-like" ... the 1st photo might be more interesting to you from a scientific standpoint, but as far as "popular" photography goes, people want to see heads and eyes, other things can be out of focus but not the eyes ...