Juvenile snow goose

[Jake Levin]

The challenge I gave my friends when we all caravanned over to the Baudet Reservoir in Victoriaville, Québec was "one snow goose", because there's often no such thing as one snow goose by itself: they prefer to keep company with at least a few thousand of their closest friends. Most of my portraits wound up being a bust, usually thanks to other birds in the frame and/or composition flubs that I couldn't work around, but this juvenile seems to have afforded me a better chance, swimming into a bit of empty water as the sun began to go from bright overhead to gold late-afternoon. This is a juvenile white-phase snow goose; the juvenile blue-phase birds are much darker gray.

I softened the background and foreground just a bit, as I was far enough away that f/8 was producing a little too much depth of field for my liking. A tiny amount of canvas was added at the bottom, and I toned down some of the highlights in the water as well.

5D mkIV, 500mm f/4 IS I, 1.4x TC III, tripod mounted
1/2000 @ f/8, ISO 400
DPP/Photoshop

Your C&Cs are always much appreciated!
Jake

[John Mack]

Looking good. Nice pose on the goose and i like the ripples in the water.

[annmpacheco]

Hi Jake, It certainly is a challenge to get the lone goose from all those thousands of other ones! I like the plumage and HA here along with the rippled water. Maybe another pass of head sharpening? Also, a bit brighter? TFS

[Arthur Morris]

Superb but count me with An on pulling up the curve a bit. The lighting and blue water are lovely as is the image design/crop.

with love, artie

[Isaac Grant]

Nice one Jake. Bird looks good against that blue water. I could see it a bit brighter but is fine as is for me. What I think would have made the image stronger than it already is, was if you were able to get lower and down at water level. I know in many places that is not possible but I think you would have had an even more pleasing background and perspective.

[Jake Levin]

I knew the question of getting lower would pop up eventually :) In this case, I desperately wanted to get lower in order to get exactly what you just described: a better background. However, I quickly realized that wouldn't be possible, because if I got any lower, I was going to have a thousand snow geese in the background instead of empty water. One of those frustrating "nothing I could have done" moments.

[David Salem]

Well, if you couldn't get down lower, at least you had the sun behind your back which gave you a nice evenly lit bird and beautiful colors. Well done