永浴爱河
When we first arrived at the Botanical Gardens for our last outing, I spotted these two ducks right in the middle of Symphony Lake, just nicely lit by a spot of warm sunlight. They were unfortunately out of the full reach of my 70-200mm f/4 L for me to take any close-up shots. I decided to adopt a wider perspective approach instead, composing the ducks against the surounding water and the background of lotus flowers. I did partial metering on the ducks, which helped to throw the surrounding background into a nice, deep colour. I have done further post-processing in Photoshop to darken and slightly desaturate the background of lotus flowers. I think this picture will look good as a super-large print hung on a wall — there are lots of details here missing in this version resized for the web 
The title for this one was contributed by CY’s mum To those who can’t read Chinese, it means literally “forever bathed in the river of love“.
nice title.
The ducks seem lost in the wide angle, maybe a slightly closer crop would be nice.
I agree with ashwin, the ducks are unable to hold the attention in the love river.
The title-ing abilities seem to run in the blood. Yong yu ai he…. i love it.
Thanks guys
This was the closest I could get with 200mm. Cropping would be an option, however I have always believed in using full-frame where possible (a cropped version will definitely be limited by resolution if I decide at some time to enlarge the picture for hanging). There are a lot of details missing in this resized version for the web. I think these details will likely make the picture stand out if I can blow it up to 24 by 16. Perhaps it’s time for me to consider getting an extender for the 70-200mm …
Aptly titled. I can see the point about the cropping but the photo works for me in that the eye has to work a bit to find the focal point of the photo, but once it does, is quite satisfying.
lovely work Eng Loy. I like the negative space of this composition. Reminds of chinese paintings.
Thanks james and paul