Mannesty,
not really Hysteria more shock and supprise at seeing it. I had never seen one before so I had no what to expect. I didn't go looking for it I just caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye !

Mike-p
Love the look of the shell you took, like george said it looks like its covered in gold

Cameralucida
Great shot

Regards
PaulM

Thanks all.

It was good practice for me to re shoot and having to think about the shot in a different way.

The biggest problam was the moody snail really. He didn't want to be on top of the leaf and kept trying to away, so I was a little more hurried.

Regards
PaulM

Yep works for me mate,

If I was to be really picky I would say the two dark uprights on the LH side detract a bit but its nothing major.

Regards
PaulM

Nice shot selectcase.

I here you Gareth, its the reason I bought the Tamrom 70-300!

Regards
PaulM

Hi all,

I was looking around the garden for some inspiration when I saw this clinging to the fence. Not really a macro more of an extreme close up (it was about 40mm long)

[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/thumb_IMGP5567copy.jpg[/IMG]

So as soon as I stopped screaming and realised it was an empty shell, I nipped in and got the camera.

Regards
PaulM

Regards
PaulM

Hi all,

A re shoot of the snail on a leaf.

I couldn't find the original shell, so I had to find another one and unfortunatly this one still had an owner, who really didn't want to be photographed.

I tried to include as many suggestions as possible from the previous post, such as greater DoF, tripod, better angles on the leaf lines etc.

Let me know what you all think

Re-shoot
[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/snail-on-a-leaf-2.jpg[/IMG]

Original - for those that didn't see it
[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/IMGP5473.jpg[/IMG]

Is it a better composition?

Regards
PaulM

Dont be silly Hefty the postage would be far too expensive. he'd be better of just giving it to me !!

Great shot Clarky, I have spent ages chasing these things round the garden trying to get a shot like this. I love the way the wing looks very fine and delicate, almost ghostly in detail.

the patch of white on the LH side and the purple splodge at the top are a little distracting though.

Regards
PaulM

Another vote for the second pic from me too, and I also agree with giving tree about the grass.

For me the little bit of grass at the bottom gives it some grounding.

Regards
PaulM

Hi Steve,

I like the wider shot showing the whole of the front crane including the end with the tool on going in to the mud its a good capture.

As a personal preference I would like to have seen some motion blur from someone moving in the picture, (just my preference of course).

Well done.

Regards
PaulM

Thanks for the replies and advice everyone.

Mike,
Suger coating things wont help me imporve honesty will.

As suggested by a few and if I can find another (or the same) snail shell I will re-shoot this weekend with a tripod for deeper DoF and I will try a few different angles to get the lines of the leaf going through different angles and perspectives.

As for being constrained by the rules, I do agree but composition wasn't something I had really given much consideration to previously. I was quite happy to put the subject in the Centre and snap away. But the more I look at other peoples Photographs (both on here and and in books, exhibitions, the web etc) the more I see the need to comprehend the principles of composition. So as a challenge, or a mini project even, I attempting to concously make the effort to compose a picture using these rules and the rule of thirds was the first I chose to tackle.
The idea being to loosely 'learn the rules' so I am aware of them before I started to break them. I dont intend to walk away from a shot if it doesn't fit in with the rules, I just think I need to be more aware of them.

Sorry I didnt intend it to be such a long answer !

Regards
PaulM

EDIT: I forgot to say thanks to Anvh for the link. A good read