Winner of our November Photo Challenge – “Freeze Frame Wildlife”
With just the second month of these challenges, I am still floored by the quality and artistry of the submissions! Keep them coming, as it’s an absolute pleasure to see the world through your eyes and your cameras. Simply stunning.
The winner of this Freeze Frame Wildlife photo challenge has gone above and beyond for this assignment. As you’ll see below, it incorporates not only a perfect freeze frame shot of a highly charismatic subject, but also incorporates a sensational background. Congrats to Lori and Richard Rothstein for winning the Freeze Frame Wildlife challenge with their shot, About to Catch a Fish!
f/8, 1/2500th of a second, ISO 640
The initial impression of the shot is perhaps the most impressive of all. It’s a perfectly crisp, focused, “frozen” bald eagle in attack position, flying in front of a spectacular mountain. Folks, this is not easy to get! In addition, there are many subtleties that I’d like to draw your attention to.
First, look at how each part of the eagle is distinct and visible, and virtually not overlapping with any other part of the bird. Again, not easy to get. It would still be a good shot if, say, the feet were in front of one of the wings, or the bird was a bit more sideways. However, the fact that it’s straight on, with each key part of the photo easily discernable, is a prime example of what you’d want with a wildlife-centric photo.
Second, there is excellent side lighting on the right side of the eagle’s face – this helps make it really pop. Even though the face is a small part of the photo, you can see the determination in its eyes as it goes in for the fish!
Third, look at the eagle’s left wing splayed out, with each individual feather so crisp against the background. This is another bonus that continues to take this photo to the “above and beyond” level.
The shot settings are exactly what you’d want in a scenario like this. F/8 allows both the bird and the background to be in focus. A 1/2500th of a second ensures that the bird will be crisp, even though it is likely moving quite fast. And an ISO of 640 is low enough that you’re still going to get excellent definition and minimize grain, but it also allows for a fast shutter speed and reasonably wide depth of field. Sure, they could have dropped the f-stop to f/5.6, but this would have compromised the definition in the eagle, let alone the landscape in the background. They could have gone up to f/11 to get an even wider depth of field, but this would have slowed the shutter down significantly, risking a blurred moving eagle.
I’d like to quickly comment on the composition of this photo. When it comes to extraordinary wildlife shots, we often don’t have the luxury of perfect composition. The wildlife is moving, often you are moving, and then getting something interesting in the background makes it all that much harder. Thus, the fact that Lori and Richard were able to segment this photo as well as they did is truly commendable. The eagle is nicely positioned in the middle third of the photo, facing the side of the photo with the most open space.
Another interesting facet of the photo is that the mountain and the eagle in many ways are two subjects combined into one focal point of the photo. You really don’t see one without the other. Thus, while we normally like to get those red intersecting points right on the foreground or background subject, if you “average” the position of the eagle with the position of the mountain, that upper right intersecting point is, well…right on point!
And this is why the photo is so visually appealing and aesthetic. Excellent technique, perfect camera settings, and an extremely well-timed shot in great shooting location to give us a pleasing composition.
Once again, Lori and Richard, congrats and great work!!
Thanks so everyone who submitted for this photo challenge. Very impressive work across the board utilizing a variety of techniques and showcasing some truly stunning wildlife photos.
Stay tuned for next month’s photo challenge!
All the best,
Court
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