The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
A tornado had just ripped though an oak grove in northern Florida toppling several trees, including the one in this image… I was in the area and decided to try and get some interesting images of the downed giant oaks… However it was teeming with birds, Bluebirds, Finches, Cardinals, Woodpeckers and Bluejays…
This guy was Enjoying all of the newly exposed grubs and insects in the downed trees. He was so preoccupied with his good fortune he allowed me to get fairly close to capture this shot…
Specific Feedback
I’d love to hear your thoughts on:
Composition
Bird position
Character of the image
And of course anything you feel could make it a stronger image
Technical Details
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Welcome to NPN and the Avian forum, Freddie. This is a really interesting first post for this forum. I like the composition a lot with the bird well placed in the frame and the distant background smooth, but with enough detail to provide a sense of place. The really bright freshly broken wood forms a very nice shape along the top of the log, but unfortunately, it’s so bright that it tends to pull my eye away from the Pileated woodpecker and the hook at the end points straight to the nearest point on the log where it’s most out of focus. Every once in awhile (rarely) I have the presence of mind to take some extra shots of the perch with different focal planes so I can combine the images in post to get rid of those distracting out of focus foregrounds. So far as I’ve found, that’s the only way to deal with them. If the brightest areas of the broken streak aren’t actually blown in the raw file, bringing them down a fair amount would help reduce the distraction. Focus and exposure on the woodpecker are excellent and I like the pose a lot.
Again, welcome to NPN and the Avain forum. I look forward to a lot more of your posts and your comments on other people’s images.
Excellent job on the repost, Freddie. You did a great job pulling down those bright areas. The only other thing I can think of is to do the same thing to the bright strip on the right and possibly crop a bit from the bottom, but not too much because you want to leave room for hte hidden tail of the bird.
Hi Freddie: one of the easy things to miss in bird photography is cropping too tightly where there are hidden features. It usually arises when photographing wading birds and forgetting how long their legs are when they’re partially hidden in the water. They just look odd when there’s not enough room for those hidden legs. The same principle applies here where half the body of the bird is hidden behind the log. Cropping too high from the bottom would give the impression that you’ve chopped off the tail-even though it can’t be seen. Non-bird people might not even be affected by it, but for the people on this forum, it can look strange.
I hope that clarifies the issue. Every genre has these little foibles and tricks.
