The Mandarin Ducks on a local lake in Korea provide many choices for photos - but they are maybe at their best in the evening light near the banks shaded by trees.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
I had many choices in dealing with the water reflections around the bird. The hardest one was how much to crop out. I didn’t want the bird to be overwhelmed. At the same time I didn’t want to lose too many of the interesting patterns. I also tried flipping the image horizontally, but preferred this original right-to-left heading towards the brightness.
Technical Details
D500 +150-600mm (@600mm) 1/640 f6.3 ISO 1000 EV+1.3
Cropped to 5% of the original - Denoise - PS and TK v6 tonal adjustments
Beautiful photo image of this duck, Mike. I love the color contrast of the duck and how sharp the image is. I think the water pattern is fine and how the duck is moving toward the brighter parts of the water.
Gorgeous, Mike. All of the patterns in, both the duck and the water, seem so perfectly orchestrated. I agree about the placement of the duck in that I like the plainer/white set against it’s head, which helps emphasis the details. Great shot.
Hi Mike
Thank you for these Mandarin Duck photographs, (their coloring is great). The feather detail, white control and reflection, combine to create a lovely photograph.
Peter
Love the swirling colored water patterns. I can see why they presented an obstacle for you. I think you chose wisely. I am still debating the top black one…did you try a crop where it is incomplete? The bird is not lost and you got great separation between the bird and the water. The brown swirl on the left does well to bring our eye to the bird. The front patterns are perfect. I like the white space in the upper left and because of the bird’s orientation in the frame, it allows us to imagine that the bird is navigating around the colored swirls. The bird is beautifully crisp and is the center of attention. I like that you left lots of breathing room above and below the bird. Nicely seen. Well executed and processed!
I’m not sure of printability…I don’t have enough experience with printing my images yet, but I’d double check the whites and do some test prints before going big.
