I found this bluebird perched on a milk weed head in the meadow at Shenandoah National Park. I liked the line of pods with one full of milk weed seed.
Comments and critiques appreciated.
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D500 Nikon 200-500 F7.1, 1/1600 and ISO 640
Hi Andrew! Beautiful colors and you can’t go wrong with a bluebird! My only suggestion would be to crop it so the focus is more on the bird and the milkweed. Maybe a 16:9 crop and take out a little of the stuff at the back of the bird? That’s just what I would do but I crop everything! It’s a very beautiful scene.
I also like to crop in to make the subject larger. The milkweed does add a balance, but my eye jumps back and forth between it and the small bird. Whatever is in the BG gives the appearance of a crooked horizon, although the FG weeds are vertical. I’d try to minimize it by darkening the lighter streak and making the top gray portion a matching brown. The latter would be very easy.
Hi Andrew, this is overall a lovely scene of the bird with pretty, soft light, and while I love the milkweed pod, too, you essentially have two subjects, as they are far enough apart to be individuals - and you have created what I call in my workshops ‘the ping-pong effect’ - the eye bounces from bird to pod to bird, etc. That creates a visual tension to the photograph. It certainly would be improved by cropping out that milkweed podly (sadly), and just featuring the bird on a dried pod, but for future, in the field, if you get this first image and then have another opportunity to keep photographing, stepping to your right a foot or so (guessing distances here) would have shifted the milkweed pod closer to the bird, and perhaps moving around a bit would have then allowed them to be close enough to become a ‘unit’ but not too close. Just changing your perspective/position can do so much, though not always. Hope that makes sense and helps!
It is a rea nice idea you had Andrew and Brenda had an excellent explanation about it and how to try another approach. I like the nice soft feel to the photo and earthy colors.
I too, like the idea here Andrew. Another reason I think there might be problem here is that there is that the Bluebird is displaying no interest in the other milkweed. If he had looked as if he might be taking off toward it or were at least looking at it instead of the camera, it might have worked. As it is, I think the suggestion of cropping to remove that bright milkweed is a good idea.
Vanessa, Thanks for the extra effort. While I was looking for an environmental type image, I think your crop makes the image much stronger. I shoot many closeups of bluebirds so looking for something different with this one. Hope you join the group. Andrew
Thank you! Yes, I definitely am going to join! I’m learning so much and it’s a great community! That makes sense what you were trying to do with your photo. The original crop idea I had didn’t seem to look right(16:9) so that’s why I showed you the best I could do with it. It’s a beautiful photo!
