287Industries on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/287industries/art/Eastern-Water-Dragon-01-150579007287Industries

Deviation Actions

Eastern Water Dragon 01

Published: Jan 16, 2010

739 Views

Description

Went on a random photography journey into the city today, and found this wonderful little critter - an adult male eastern water dragon (~~Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii~~ Intellagama lesueurii lesueurii, I think). Ended up lying in a garden bed and carefully moving forward 10cm at a time in order to get this close... and I'm damn happy that I made the effort to do so.

Copyright © Shannon Walters 2010, All Rights Reserved.

Please do not use my images without my permission.

Comments, critiques and favs are always appreciated, even if I don't get around to replying to each individual one.

Image size

1200x900px 756.83 KB

Date Taken

Jan 16, 2010, 4:24:07 PM

Comments12

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Flame-of-the-Phoenix

Sep 8, 2012

Overall

Vision

Originality

Technique

Impact

_{This is a wonderful shot!

The first aspect that caught my attention was the bokeh in the background: it adds a nice backdrop to the subject without taking away from it. There is also a softness about it that contrasts well with the roughness of the lizard's scales.

Similarly, the composition of the photo and the focus are both spot on! Every small spine and scale on the lizard's head is in focus, even down to the varying browns of the iris. Just enough of the lizard's body is in the picture so that it adds a certain balance, but does not shift the focus away from the head.

One thing that bothered me a little was the lighting. I feel as though the lighting on the lizard could be a bit better, either with more light shining on his head, or a play of shadows and light. If you wanted, you could also try editing it with Photoshop or something similar (if you have it) to bring the highlights up a little.

That being said, the whole photograph with all its pieces added together, creates a beautiful portrait. A lot of times reptile images are not very "interesting" because of their lack of facial expressions (and overall non-cuddliness <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/b/b…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title=" (Big Grin)"/>). In this case, I think you took an excellent and, most importantly, interesting shot with a sometimes tough subject.

Keep up the great work! <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/a/a…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title="Aww"/>}