This is my first post in avian. I just came across this shot from a few years back. I was in Kruger national park in South Africa watching a croc’ in a waterhole from the drivers window of my vehicle. As I turned to look across to the other side this fellow had landed on the passenger door.
Far too close for the SLR I was using so I grabbed my little compact.
I think that it must have been somewhat habituated to people as the waterhole was a popular stopping place, and I think that it was hoping for food.
Pretty funny story. It must have been surprising to see the big bill so close. If mine I might brighten up the eye and around it a bit. As well I would look at a crop from bottom removing feet and probably road as well. Good for you to be quick on the camera switch. Very impressive bird.
Amazing catch! So nice you had a small camera that would do justice to the subject, and the reflexes to pull off the shot! The pose couldn’t be better and the BG is wonderful! The crop is great. I’d get greedy and try to add some canvas on top. It’s worth a try that Content-Aware fill might do a good job, maybe with some cloning. Otherwise, it might be good to consider an alternative version with a little more taken off the top – just a tiny bit, so it’s less obvious it wasn’t such a narrow miss.
That was a cool opportunity. I love the head turn and the tree in the BG. If this were mine, I’d also crop up from the bottom and see what I could do about extending the canvas at the top of the frame. And I’d brighten your whites on the bird, something like the below:
In Photoshop, I opened a curves layer and used the eye dropper on the brightest whites on the bird to set a white point. I think I then lowered the opacity of that layer because the whites were a little too bright.
Ryan, you will have a really super image if you crop the feet off the bottom (as suggested), brighten the eye (as suggested) and whiten the feathers on the bird (as suggested), but not on the background. That’s all I’ve been on safari and I know sometimes you just have to shoot quickly and hope for the best. In this case it worked really well! I hope you can post the final image.
I’ve been on safari and I know sometimes you just have to shoot quickly and hope for the best. In this case it worked really well! I hope you can post the final image.