Nature Photography 104: Part 5: why do things always have to be so dramatic?

To make a very long story short, I keep finding myself annoyed with nature photography. I was very worked up a few days ago, when I became quite confident that the winner of a fairly large photo contest must have edited/doctored the photo... I then look at said persons website, and found some very blatant editing along with large amounts of shameless self-promotion as a truly expert photographer. 

This really wasn't anything new, but I learned something from it: People can do whatever the heck they want, and I shouldn't care about it. If it bothers me, I can just focus on how I conduct myself and my photography! And with that said, I had the idea to reveal some of the work done on my own photos on my personal website. 

Are you ready for a look at everything you may or may not already know about nature photography? I'll post the website version first, followed by the totally un-edited original.

____________________________________________

Nature Photography 104: Part 5: Why do things always have to be so dramatic?


From: http://www.peregrineprints.com/zz_ANHI.htm

Here’s an example from the height of my “colour” phase. For some reason, I felt like this image really handled the boost of contrast and colour. It’s important to remember that the “original” shown here is actually duller than real life.. And in reality, there was the dark side of a thunderhead behind the bird, but I’ve obviously pushed it a bit further.....

Sort of bears the question, why does everything have to be so dramatic? In my experiences, these images are often more popular on photography forums (and among photographers and birders too)... I think, when viewed alone, they really do stand out compared to other photos the viewer has seen of the same species.  But when I end up with a website full of “dramatic” images, it starts to give me the “over-dramatic” feeling...

The first image is probably one of the bigger culprits on my site, but hopefully I’ll have more to expose in the future!  I've sort of reached a point where I'm not longer happy with some of these images, (and think I could do a much better job if I did a re-edit), but just don't have the motivation to do them. Especially when I have new photos to work with! 

Hope you enjoyed this installment! If you found it a bit dull, never fear, the next 2 are on owls...