The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I don’t live too far from Fort DeSoto park in Florida, which apparently is a hot spot for bird photography. I had tried to get there for sunrise, but I learned the park is closed until 7:00am which was disappointing. On this particular day, it was really windy and overcast and I found only a few snowy plovers and black bellied plovers on the sand flats and shallow waters on the north beach. On my way back to my car, I spied three reddish egrets feeding in the deeper waters and heading towards me. I crouched down on the edge of the water and waited. They strutted, swirled doing pirouettes, ran, and doused their heads into the waters after food. Such a display. They came so close at times I could not focus. I learned it is much easier to follow a moving bird at a distance than one at the end of your lens. What a great day I had there.
Specific Feedback
Open to any ideas.
Technical Details
1/1600 @ f10, iso 1600, Minimally processed in lightroom. Blue calibration set to 90, Highlights slider all the way to the left, Black and White sliders just inside of clipping. Minimal enhancement of the eye. No other processing was done.
Beautiful portrait, Kathryn. Your processing looks very good and it appears as if you weren’t too far from minimum focal distance here. In terms of composition, my personal taste would call for a little less of the body on the right and a bit of extra room on the left.
Excellent capture, Kathryn. I love his colors and you really got wonderful details. Yes, I like the crop better. So glad he was so close for you. It sounds like a wonderful day for you, and I hope you get many more at that park. Sounds wonderful to be so close. To bad they aren’t open at sunrise.
I’m assuming the top version is the revised crop. If so, I also like it better (the back part of the body didn’t add much, and the sliver of background beneath the butt was a distraction). All the good stuff is in that head and neck… I was drawn instantly to the swirling feathers slithering down the middle of the frame.
As a result, I don’t think extra space in front is actually necessary. To me the strength of the scene is that neck line and those feathers, so my tendency is normally to emphasize something like that with a tighter crop. I don’t believe the eye needs to be led away from it with more empty space in front… the main path for the eye is vertical here, IMO.
I am not a birder but this is a wonderful image and beautiful creature.
My two cents is the tighter crop is more balanced and pulls you in.
Very interesting how different viewers see differently.
Just shows there is no correct critique.
