{"id":19239,"date":"2013-10-13T05:12:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T11:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=19239"},"modified":"2013-10-13T05:12:33","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T11:12:33","slug":"a-curious-coyote-a-reflection-and-a-compositional-quandary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/13\/a-curious-coyote-a-reflection-and-a-compositional-quandary\/","title":{"rendered":"A Curious Coyote, A Reflection And A Compositional Quandary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago we found this coyote exploring along the Antelope Island causeway.\u00a0 We watched it gnaw on a duck or shorebird\u00a0carcass (possibly falcon leftovers, based on past experience) and then it continued to look\u00a0for something, almost anything, to eat.\u00a0 When it reached the end of a rocky spit jutting out into the Great Salt Lake it entertained us with some interesting behavior.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/11, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The coyote was apparently intrigued by its own reflection in the still, reflective water.\u00a0 At first its reaction seemed playful…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/11, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

but then I got the distinct impression that the coyote wasn’t quite sure where that “other guy” came from.\u00a0 Notice the raised hackles in this image and the next one (it’s possible they were raised simply by the lowered position of the head but I don’t think so).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/11, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The coyote continued to stare almost straight down…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/11, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0even as it turned around slightly on the tip of the spit.\u00a0 I believe it was following its own\u00a0reflection as it moved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/11, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0But eventually it apparently decided that the reflection was no threat and went for a stroll…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/9, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

in the very shallow Great Salt Lake.<\/p>\n

Though I wasn’t as close to this coyote as I would have liked I still\u00a0enjoy some of these images, not only for the behavior but also\u00a0for the setting – with the coyote against the almost mirror-like blues of the water.\u00a0 But when I was preparing the images for posting I had a compositional dilemma.<\/p>\n

Though I do know a few of the basic rules of composition I mostly go by instinct and the seat of my pants.\u00a0 One of the rules I try to follow when I can is to leave extra room in front of the subject in the direction it is looking or moving.\u00a0 But with some of these images that meant cropping out most of the rocky spit to the left which my instinct told me wasn’t the best way to go.\u00a0 Besides, that would leave a lot of “dead space” (featureless water) to the right of the coyote…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/a><\/p>\n

like\u00a0in\u00a0this version of the first image posted here.\u00a0 My eye prefers the first version but I may be way out in left field.<\/p>\n

Some of my readers have told me in the past that “rules are sometimes meant to be broken”.\u00a0 The problem is, in this case I don’t know for sure\u00a0if this is one of those times.<\/p>\n

So, if anyone would care to critique my composition and perhaps explain your reasoning I’d be grateful.\u00a0 I’d like to know how to deal with a situation like this the next time it shows up.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two days ago we found this coyote exploring along the Antelope Island causeway. We watched it gnaw on a duck or shorebird carcass (possibly falcon leftovers, based on past experience) and then it continued to look for something, almost anything, to eat. When it reached the end of a rocky spit jutting out into the Great Salt Lake it entertained us with some interesting behavior.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,334,374],"tags":[31,401,916,98,160,591],"class_list":["post-19239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-coyotes","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-canis-latrans","tag-composition","tag-coyote","tag-great-salt-lake","tag-reflection"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/coyote-1760-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-50j","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}