Photography finals -bio illustration

[paris]

yeah! im done with the class -i took about 800 photos! for our final we had to turn in 3 projects with 10 photos each (but you could turn in more) and one best photo set of at least 4. i am posting the species specific photos (well caudate ones) in the species specific section (go fig

) -they are mole salamanders and taricha torosa sierrae. i did megophrys nausuta for my frog - i posted a few before -they are in this set but now cleaned up and cropped. here are my final project photos of the frog...yeah i know i should copywrite them....

remember this one?-i sent it through photoshop and took out most of the eye glare

this is one with natural light only

this is one with flash

the rest of these are different composition photos

this was my best shot for the group

 

[paris]

ok ill try this post again -im getting too many explorer errors lately.....

i am not sure how many of you are familiar with these leaf frogs-but the horn like appendages on their eyes are actually their eyelids. when they blink these drop down like dog ears -very cute to watch. i didnt get a good enough pic of him closing both eyes but i did get a decent one of him winking...

..oh yeah -and look closely at the other photos -these frogs have diamond shaped pupils

also -if i had acess to fallen leaves from their area of origin (malaysia) they would have blended in to their background alot better -but i only had oak leaves.....

(Message edited by paris on July 03, 2004)

 

[flavius]

Hi Paris

Great pics, I also have Asian Horn fogs,I wondered how you keep yours? What temp / humidity etc What are you feeding ,are you supplementing, any breeding success.

My Megophrys are so noisy,the male starts calling about 2000 hrs every night,and then every hour till about 0600 hrs...cute at first!
I also have Soloman Island eyelash frogs,very similar ,as well as the usual ornate and cranwells horn frogs.

Cheers

Paul

 

[joseph]

Was there a particular reason to remove the glare from the eyes? IMHO it made them look much more "realistic"and added some character too. Artists often go for that effect.

 

[paris]

if you look at the original picture though-you can see there is waaay too much glare in the eyes-from both the windows in the background, the overhead lights and a few other sources in the room. i left a little bit but nothing like what was there before. i felt it distracted from the photo-offsetting the composition since it drew the viewers eyes there first.

 

[clarence]

those are some great pics.

 

[coen]

Great pics Paris, but I go with Joseph here, the glare in the eyes makes it realistic. Maybe you should replace it with some other glare thats more natural or something. Because this way the eyes look 'dried up'.

 

[john]

It's a common trick of portrait photographers, animal or people, to create catchlights in the eyes. You'd be amazed at how much this can improve an photo. You know, twinkle in the eyes. Flash is usually the best way of achieving this but perhaps that glare you removed might have been similar? I'd like to see it, just to be sure.

Lovely animals and lovely photos though, well done Paris.

 

[paris]

here is the photo untouched-its further down in this column
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/985/17476.jpg
its not one flash source, its a bunch of lights that created a big glare. you can still see reflections in the frogs eyes in the touched up version-but these reflections are of their immediate surroundings-not the window, the lights and possibly even me.

 

[john]

Lower the overall brightness of that photo and I think it will look pretty good.

 

[paris]

flavius-
i just got them with my new newt shipment-so ive had all but one for about ?? 3 weeks i think. my first one i got was at the pet shop and had its nose rubbed very bad-it was in a 1 gallon square tank. i doctored it up well but it probably wont grow back the fleshy nose bit. i thought it was a male since in can sort of make a 'squonk' when i hold it in a mock amplexus-but when i ordered the other 6 the one that was a female was the exact size-are the females able to produce noise? the other i have are males and juvies-i believe i have 2.4 if my guesses are correct. i currently have them in a 30 gallon tank with a water pan that takes up nearly 1/2 the tank-the other 1/2 is logs and leaves to hide in. i do get an occasional 'qwerk!' out of a male or two-but not enough even to call it regular. we have low humidity here in colorado-its about 13-16% normally and i have only a screen on top for now-i mist them off daily-but i will block the screen soon-about 50% to limit water loss & increase internal humidity. the temps are room temp-so about 60 at night and 80 during the day. are these easy to breed? when my female arrived in shipping they had only one other in the container with her-and he was clamped on tight-so i know that one was a male, since then when i was doing the photos-i used 2 for the shots-and again when i took them out of their container one male was in amplexus with another frog of his size-so the other was either a really relaxed male or a juvenile female. i can tell by the thumbs that a few are definitely males - but i am unsure if non season males will still show hint of pads-or at least dark thumbs. any tips on keeping them will greatly be appreciated.

 

[joseph]

Nice setup! "Pond" is hidden very well.

 

[katy]

I agree, I think it looks heaps better with the eye glare.