Turtle Close Up

Turtle Close Up

Driving by I noticed this small (less than 10cm long) turtle at the side of the road. Naturally I stopped for some close-up shots, to show the beauty of this shy reptile. We usually only observe the shell and never stop to notice the interesting body of the turtle, and this photo shows lots of details that we naturally do not observe.

What do I like about this photo? The very low angle of view. It shows the turtle as it would have been seen by another turtle, so basically from its own point of view. There are lots of details, as I was able to get quite close. This enabled me to use a relatively closed aperture, so that the depth of field is increased. Due to the proximity and the low angle of view the background is still blurred out, since it's much further away than the turtle itself.

What would I want to improve? There's some noticeable dust specks on the right side of the photo that are visible because I used a close aperture with a close focusing distance. I should have cleaned those in advance. Lighting was also not ideal that day - it was very cloudy which makes the colors somewhat muted.