A Touch of Zen
Dragonflies are in abundance by the reservoirs in Singapore. The last time I took one by the reservoir was this favourite of mine at MacRitchie Reservoir. I have been looking for a chance to take something along similar lines. Though not as clean in composition as my previous attempt, I like this one because of the reflections of the dragonfly and twigs. I only wished that the dragonfly was more colourful! In this instance, I had to boost the saturation on the dragonfly considerably to get the final effect.
Your recent attempts to recreate your “favourite” shot were erm… not as erm.
Perhaps you should not try to recreate it and shoot something revolutionary. A feel i suppose. It’ll release you of that constraint you’ve put on yourself.
This one has an artificial feel to it, somewhat forceful imitation i must say. Sense a touch of over sharpening (or the way the highlights were made it like this) and of course, shooting the backside of the dragonfly is never nice.
Thanks for the comments jcyrhs 🙂 Appreciate the feedback. I’m not forcibly constraining myself to just making/repeating these shots; I just happen to come across similar subjects during my last two trips, so I took the chance to try to recreate something similar (and in the process maybe come up with a stylistic series). I think the “sharpening” effect you are referring to here is not a result of sharpening, but rather due to the levels adjustments I have made to increase the overall contrast. Thanks anyway for the constructive criticisms 🙂