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Cecilia Lim | all galleries >> Galleries >> life > Chasing Eagle
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24 April 2005 Perhentian Island, Malaysia

Chasing Eagle

A photo. A look. A touch. Everyone wants a piece of this poor eagle.


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Guest 21-Aug-2005 13:38
All these people seemed ready to jump on the poor eagle. Your cropping surely enhanced the body language and motion. I like how the last guy’s head is right on the edge; it emphasizing the motion even more…
Phil Douglis20-Aug-2005 18:08
Sounds like you had good fortune going here for you, Celia. However, as you well know, luck is the residue of design. Because you had been observing the behavior of these people for a while, you were ready when everything came into coherence, and made the most of the moment you had. This is not the kind the picture you can just see and shoot. You must be "working" the image already, finding the most effective vantage point, observing the actions, reactions, and interactions of the people, and then seizing the moment when it all came together for you.
Cecilia Lim20-Aug-2005 13:46
Thank you so much Phil - I am thrilled that you found this image delightfully funny! I had observed this amusing group of people trying to get near the eagle for a while and it was only this particular instant that everything came together for a great story-telling image. There wasn't even a thousandth of a second to spare because after I had taken this shot, everyone's body position and body language had changed. I didn't even have time to think about composition and just prayed that I got all the essential subjects within the frame the way that I saw it with the guys rising diagonally towards the back, which seemed to imply this heightened sense of excitement. Lucky for me, I just barely managed to get the last guy in the frame! And with the technology of digital photography I could easily crop away the distracting sky and convert it to black & white to stress their body form.
Phil Douglis16-Aug-2005 22:30
It's the Theatre of the Absurd, Celia. Perfect vantage point. You have organized this image around the incongruity of five people staring at an eagle's backside. I love the way the heads and hands echo the thrust of the eagle's wings, and the final exclamation point is that severed head sticking into picture from the upper right hand corner. Normally, that kind of a crop would be a distraction -- a head coming into the picture from nowhere. But in this case it is perfect punctuation -- the trail of eagle watchers keeps rising until it glides out of the upper corner with him. Chasing Eagle -- great title, too.