I photographed this Great Blue Heron on the BC coast last February and only just got around to processing this image. I hid behind some rocks so I could get them out of focus in the foreground and kind of lead the eye to the heron.
IG: @jenayalaunsteinphotography
Jenaya, this simply does not work for me. I can’t get pass the OOF foreground. That said, I love the GBH, the hairdo is simply amazing. It gives him quite the hairdo!
Great shot of the heron. The detail is excellent. But, the OOF rock on the left really draws the eye and seems to dominate the photo. I do like the concept of seeing the heron hidden behind the rocks, but the left rock doesn’t work for me. Sorry. BTW, what gear are you using these days?
The Heron is beautifully sharp, Jenaya, and the windswept look is really cool. Like Adhika, the foreground rocks don’t seem to work here. I think the one on the right might have been ok, but the large gray one on the left is just too much for my taste.
I’m using my Nikon D600 and the Nikkor 200-500 for the most part, but am hoping to upgrade my camera this year.
I did zoom in for a couple shots, and the out of focus rocks aren’t as prominent. I’ll post it in the thread later.
While I like the concept of framing subjects for specific reasons I think the frame elements have to add to the image, not detract from the image. For me, the OOF rocks just don’t do anything to add to the content of the image. If I were a painter, painting on a canvas, I wouldn’t add something like that to my image. I’m always looking at photography as a subtractive endeavor. To me that means removing or subtracting things from the image that don’t add to the image and doing the best with the situation at hand to only add those things that really add to the image.
Ok, so I went back into my files and found the one I had talked about above with less of the rocks. This guy was so relaxed that he let me try different angles and focal lengths for quite some time. Anyway, here’s another file I found today.
While I like this one better than the original post, I still find the OOF rocks to be distracting and take away from the image rather than add to it.
My thoughts would echo Keith’s, but this is such a nice image of the heron, I wonder if it wouldn’t work as a portrait, with a tight crop around the head and upper body.
Significantly better, Jenaya, but the dark corner still pulls my eye away from the subject.
I think you got the oof in the foreground which is distracting
That said, if you want to save the 2nd better image try the portrait and some dehaze in the bottom right. You get recover something in the bird and then apply a vignette possibly
Bird itself is lovely- May want to reduce the highlights some
