Not too long ago I took part in a charity walk whose path toured the grounds of some of the colleges at Cambridge University that are normal shut to the public. There were a lot of beautiful buildings and gardens but at Corpus Christie College I was stuck by this scene of all the pedestrians observing the “stay off the grass” sign while a solitary bird ignored it completely:
ISO 1600 13mm f/20 1/400sec
Cheeky little bird!
It was a funny scene, but the original image was a bit, uninspired:
ISO 1600 13mm f/20 1/400sec
You can see I have done quite a few edits here, but one of the most important was applying a field blur in Photoshop. In this case, I have kept the bird in focus and purposely blurred all the people. Emphasizing the importance of the little rebel who was strutting around the grass looking down its beak at us walkers on the path.
Have you ever edited a photo to tell a story? Certainly this can be a bit of a controversial topic, but feel free to leave a comment below.
Cheers!
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Great eye on this one – cheeky bird indeed! You’d NEVER see so many paying attention to a sign here in the US – just sayin’
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It’s worth pointing out that they had a few walk “marshals” in this courtyard to keep all in line. That bird was having none of it though 🙂
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“Editing” is part of photography!!
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I agree, but it can be a bit of a slippery slope I think.
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Nice cropping, and the field blur works for me. (By the way, clicking on the image in the reader get a “page missing”.) Cheers, thanks for showing both shots.
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Ok, somehow I must be doing something wrong, I’ll have to see if I can figure that out. Thanks!
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Hi, I think I fixed it for this post, would you mind seeing if it now works when you take a look at the photo?
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The nerve of this bird larking about like that!
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I know right?!
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I like the emphasis in your final version on the “popping” greenness of the grass and its bird occupant. Your story reminds me of times when I’m writing and I choose to focus on a specific detail in the description that may be a symbol or analogy of the thing that’s going on between two people – or something! That’s my “editing to tell a story” story! 🙂 Fun photo.
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Thanks for making that connection writing, I find it interesting when things like that overlap.
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Me too!
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Well I am certainly no expert but I would like to think of photography as an art form where there are many ways to interpret it. I think by blurring the people you have really helped to tell the story, Edit on I say!
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Thank you Sue!
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🙂 Well said!
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Well done. Editing is important part of photography.
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Thank you, and I agree.
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I love the editing version!
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Thanks Amy 🙂
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I like the unusual idea of blurring a Picture, good work.
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Thanks very much, sometimes some blur can be a good thing 🙂
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Fabulous picturestory! 🙂 In every court there are those signs, stay off the green. Quite impressive, actually. The vignette makes the bird stand out very nicely.
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Thank you very much, it was too humorous a moment for me to just pass by.
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