26th June, 2011
Hi Jane…this is a rather fun photo and I like it. It is very simple and yet from a design perspective it is elegant in that both bees are in focus and flying in perfect formation. The only let down with this image is the background; it is so out of focus that it looks more like you have thrown some paint onto a canvas and then let it all wash into a blur. With such a blurry background we tend to loose that sense of place that most of us like to see in a photograph.
In making this photo you could have improved the depth of field by pulling back the shutter speed slightly to 1/1000th of a second without making too much difference and then increasing your ISO a stop or two (from ISO 400 to 800 or even 1600). This would have given you the chance to work at f8, which would have added slightly more detail into the background. That is something you can explore next time; for the moment though we are more interested in how we can improve this image. So here is a big question for you… as you look at the photo, what do you notice when you look to the left and the right of the bees? If you are seeing like me then chances are it is a big sweet nothing... so here is a suggestion for you… why not crop this image to a square. Give it a go and I think you will find that it improves the image dramatically.
There is only one thing that you need to do now to improve this photo… the right side of the image looks a little bright and so I would use the burn tool in Photoshop to gently darken that side slightly. To do this simply select the Burn tool, in the tool options bar set the range to Midtones and the Exposure to about 5%. Use a big brush to wipe down this side of the picture and suddenly you should notice that the front of the bees become more obvious in the picture!
Cheers, Image Doctor!
Bee Loving - Image Doctor's edited version
