Dune Patrol

[Andre Pretorius]

Kori Bustard on his morning rounds to find some unlucky
rodent, snake etc for breakfast. Kgalagdi, in dunes. They are the heaviest flying birds in Southern Africa- they would prefer to run from danger than to fly-it takes great effort to lift off.

Techs: Nikon D3S 600f4
1/6400 with 6,3
ISO 800
(camera was still on settings from previous image):e3

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Hi Andre, this is different and unconventional (imho) and it works for me. Love the in-stride pose and a look at the path he/she is going down. Gives a nice sense of the place. I'm really enjoying this image. TFS.

[Carl Walker]

Hi Andre - At first I tried using the browser window to see if taking some off the top and eliminating the skyline but then realised it is good as it is. My take is the road leading to the top of the dune and out of the frame. ALthough the HA is not what we are all after I get the impression that he was moving down the road when you came along and he is giving you the side ways glance. The only slight distraction for is the yellow flowers but I am guessing that you kept them in for a bit of colour. Great shot

[Diane Miller]

Different and very nice! My eye goes to the "crooked horizon" of the ridge on which the bird is standing. It may have been that way, but I always wonder if it's better to level the camera to a feature like that, especially when it's close to an edge. There's no clue in the frame that it isn't level. If it had been a stronger slope it would have read as natural.

I also wonder how the heavy shadows above the bird would look if they were lightened a little? (Best done with the Shadows slider in LR / ACR if you're processing that way.) But maybe you already did that and this is as far as you want to go. This is just a quick tweak with Shadows-Highlights. Alternatively, or in addition, a gradient darkening at the bottom could help balance the heaviness of the dark area at the top.

I'm always reluctant to offer an example instead of just the suggestions, but I'll toss this one out. It's just a quick tweak -- a very small improvement to an already strong image.

[Andre Pretorius]

Thank you Sidharth, Carl and Diane for comments.

The gravel road in the dunes goes trough the dunes through "streets" (the lower/flat area between dunes) and the ridges/dunes. The Kori was standing on top of the dune, walking down towards the street. The road cuts the the next top dune(horizon).
The slope you see was part of a dune sloping down to the road.
I wanted to include the skyline in the image to try and convey a feel for the surroundings. Should I rather consider a tighter crop from the top?

Diane, for some peculiar reason Shadows/highlights in my CS6 does not work, when you select it from image adjustment, it brightens everything, no slider can bring down highlights??!
I did do a masked lumo layer to lighten heavy shadows on bird and shadows on dune slope.

Regards
Andre

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andre, would have preferred if the head was even turned a tad more CCW so you had some light on it and just being me, but remove the small shadow just on the FG ridge. Controlled the light well and the environment/habitat is different, personally i like the framing & position in frame.


some peculiar reason Shadows/highlights in my CS6 does not work
Will get you to try something.

Cheers
Steve