Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
Any reactions are welcome!
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
The prehistoric look of the shoebill stork is unique. Therefore, it is a bird that we enjoy looking for. Nowhere else are you more likely to spot this bird than in Uganda. The bird stands still for a long time and then suddenly strikes when a fish or frog enters its undisturbed waters. But sometimes he gets tired from all that standing still, so then a huge yawn follows…
Mabamba Swamp, Uganda
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
I recently went through galleries of prize winning wildlife photos with a sense of humor. This one would take the cake! Really I guffawed when I saw this unusual bird doing …. It’s thing. Technically, the blur of its surroundings is a bit heavy handed, IMHO but ultimately my eye doesn’t care - it lands on the bird and stays there. Which is the point, right? What the heck is it, anyway?
@connie, thanks for your comment and, honestly, if I made you laugh, I’m happy
Any kind of emotion as a reaction to a photo is very important to me, except for ‘neutral’
As in ‘What the heck is is, anyway?’, do you mean the subject or the blur? The subject is a shoe-billed stork, aka shoebill, the blur is papyrus, rendered OOF bij the 300mm lens full open. It was difficult to get close to this bird at the time. It was far away from a navigable canal, so the boat had to be shoved on and on by the poler through the thick papyrus and shallows to get a bit closer. We got stuck a number of times, but eventually managed to find a peek hole through the papyrus that gave a free view of the shoebill.
I guess that answers your question?
Your caption is perfect on this Ingrid. It does indeed look prehistoric, and I think the OOF reeds really add to that mystique. I love the big gaping yawn. What a beak!
My initial reaction was…what the heck? It looks prehistoric. Almost like you put two different creatures together to create it. Really interesting. I do feel that the blur is much too strong, though.
Great setting and beautiful photograph, I love the bokeh here and the foreground grasses have made this frame so wonderful !
Last year, I met a photographer in Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, who used to shoot all his subjects through some OOF foreground objects, none of his images had a clear view of birds, your image reminded me of him.
That’s very funny, I never thought of it like that, but yes, it does look like the head just doesn’t match the body, doesn’t it? The blur is because of the papyrus in the foreground, as explained in my previous comment, it couldn’t be helped…
Thanks again and have a great weekend!
Ingrid.
