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
I hope this presents a tender, caring moment. What do you feel when viewing?
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
Western Gull (Larus occidentalis)
Technical Details
600mm, 1/2000 sec @ f/8, ISO 800
Specific Feedback
The color version seemed to take away from the emotional context. I think the B&W removes the emotion of the colors and focuses it on the two birds.
Hi David, definitely pick up on the feel of this intimate moment with an interesting view of the chick on the rock face. Also like the contrast of rough rock texture to the down on the chick. Wish the focus was more on the chick though as seen in the largest image. Still a well done image.
Initial reaction: I get some of the feel you’re trying to convey, David, but I also know (too much knowledge can spoil things) that gulls are well known for preying on the young of other species (including other gull species), so I’m a bit ambivalent about the attitude of the adult to the chick.
Very good management of your depth of field and this is a special moment.
I like it because it shows a gull doing something other than what we usually see. At least that’s the way it comes across for me. The B&W works well and I like the facing chick with its little beak open. Of course all I hear in my head is “mine! mine! mine!” from Finding Nemo, but that’s ok. Sweet shot all around.
Oh and as a B&W aficionado, you might find it interesting that Panasonic is putting a Leica Monochrome mode into the new G9 mk II. That will be fun to play with once it ships. I haven’t preordered it, but I will pick one up eventually.
