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
Does the lack of a defining line of the water’s surface bother you?
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 transformation of the male Ruff in breeding season from a plain looking shorebird to a feathery extravaganza is one of nature’s miracles. And even more miraculous, is that each male Ruff 's adornment is quite different from any other. Sitting in a hide in western Finland to photograph this spectacle was something I have long wanted to do. I hope this image emphasizes just how extraordinary the male Ruff can be.
Technical Details
Sony a1, Sony 200-600mm at 600mm, manual exposure, 1/1600th at f/6.3, ISO 800. This is not much of a crop, only a reformat into 4x5. The water’s surface is not visible in the original image. However, I did have to clean up some small specs of crud floating on the water’s surface.
Initial Response: Very cool reflection shot, but it feels weird for a bird that usually leks on dry land. It does show off that crazy plumage very well.
No - lack of line does not bother me. In fact, it makes the shot more interesting - even the water reflection is identical and unruffled! I love this. (I’d clone out the orange bit under the reflection of his head).
Very cool!! It looks like it saw its reflection and was challenging it! Wonderful detail! The lack of a “horizon” makes it even more intriguing, for me. The reflection is so sharp, who would want anything else?
Wow, these are most unusual, at least to me, Charles, as we watched some kind of documentary with these on it a few nights ago, and I thought that was my first of seeing them. To get such a shot with it’s reflection is quite the shot. Very nice. I meant to congratulate you on the Editor’s Pick!
This image could easily go into an abstract category as well. Very artistic and the reflection is almost as detailed as the ruff. Very deserving of the EP and congrats for getting this photo. Awesome…Jim
Thanks, Jim. I frankly couldn’t quite believe what I saw in reviewing the images in camera. It was one of those situations in which I was shooting fairly rapidly without carefully composing before pressing the shutter.
Hi Charles
Well deserving of the Editor’s pick and thank you for showing us this male Ruff. The coloring, feather detail and eye contact is great, but what keep me trapped in this photograph was the reflection. Very nice job on this photo.
Peter
