I know many photographers will discuss the compositional and geometrical merits of their photographs with profound profundity, nodding to shapes and depth and leading lines and asymmetry, concerting foregrounds and backgrounds, oh my. I actually hope to become one of those photographers. But I’m not there yet. (I tell myself it’s all niggling nonsense, secretly masking my jealousy at their talent for taking amazing photographs and then discussing them in intelligent and interesting ways) I don’t walk out the door, eye to the world looking for the right shapes and the right foreground, middleground and background, waiting with a Corleone steel-nerved finger on the shutter for everything to align into a symbiotic (non-)conformity, a two-dimensional effigy to my visual prowess. I do look for the right compositions, but being a neophyte in this great game of light-wrangling, I’m quite happy to just get a lucky shot. I never like what I take. I always think, Aww, why didn’t I use a different aperture for better depth of field? (sometimes the answer is I’m scared to not have everything/everyone I want in focus…then I think, You are supposed to know your gear better than that! Stop guessing and KNOW! Then I think, It’s all too much and too hard, oh woe is me (er, I), I will put this gold-plated brick on the desk to hold the many papers of all the unwritten words of my stories and novels. Whoops, did I just digress? Never happens. Honest.) Or, why didn’t I move to the right and get the head in a cleaner spot? Why did I choose this angle instead of moving my feet around and boogie-ing a little for some actual creation as opposed to take-ation. (Ahem, sorry, a fruit fly just flew up my nostril as I tried to take another sip of Liberty Creek wine)

So what does all of this have to do with the photograph at hand? I told you, I digress. (or did I tell myself as no-one actually reads this new-born fancy of my mind?)

Well, I actually do like the curves in this photograph. 🙂 I like the curve of the lizard and the curve of the leaf above it, sort of paralleling it. I like the way the other leaf above the lizard points down at it. I even like the leaf to the left, which is sort of lying down like a palm having just swung in praise of its greater. (I should probably delete that but I’m not) I also like the greens and the browns, and that the lizard is one of those cool color mutating lizards, in the middle of its translation to self-deluded camouflage. (I mean, it’s no peppered moth, right?) I like that it is bringing the two colors together.

Another interesting thing about the photograph is the somewhat shallow DOF. It’s shot at f/4, though on an f/2.8 Macro lens. Given the distance of the camera to the lizard, and the DOF I see in the picture I would expect something like f/2. Those macros though. I know it’s true for all lenses, that the closer to the subject, the less the DOF, but it really seems to be magnified for the macros.

At any rate, I do like this photograph. I also do wish I had the 180mm macro instead (or in addition to!) of the 100mm (this image is heavily cropped…was I supposed to point that out earlier?). I wish I wish I wish. This will not turn into gear talk. It will not turn into a work with what you have sans complaints discussion. It. will. not.

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