Right-side up or upside-down? You decide.
Here's an original shot, exactly as framed. I was lucky enough to get the lion's reflection well isolated and the late afternoon sun was throwing enough light on him but not the water, so he popped. When I saw that reflection so distinct, I knew I wanted to try for some sort of unusual shot using the reflection. My plan was to take the shot when he went down for a drink, but he didn't cooperate. He was pacing back and forth along this waterline, and the one time he did take a drink, he was facing away from me.
But this is exactly the type of photo that's fun to work with in Photoshop.
Note that some of the crudeness (pixelation) you see around the mouth and nose is really just the result of the downsizing of this image. The full-sized image is much more subtle and the ripple effects much more visually interesting. Detail of nose:
So what did I end up doing? Well, I flipped the shot:
The moral of this story is simple:
- First, learn the rules.
- Second, break the rules.
- Third, tell others to always follow the rules.
Oh, wait, forget that last one. Not only did I break some rules with the original shot (shooting only the reflection), I broke rules when I processed the shot, flipping it vertically from the way I shot it. What I ended up with is different, and different is often good these days in photography.
