Black-Headed Gull

[Aditya Sridhar]

Hello! :bg3:

I've been lurking around the Avian forum for the past few years, admiring the high level of skill and professionalism on display. I finally bit the bullet today and joined this wonderful community which has helped shape my own photography. Thank you for being such an amazing source of inspiration and development. I hope to participate regularly and use the feedback to further improve my skills and technique.

Coming to the image, this Black-headed Gull was captured in April 2019 at the Farlington Marshes Nature Reserve in Portsmouth, UK. The bird was back-lit and the sun was fairly high, so conditions weren't ideal. The image hasn't been cropped much and represents appx. 80% of the original. In hindsight, I could've raised the ISO and increased the aperture for more DOF. The gulls were very skittish (surprisingly) so this was the only image I could capture in the sequence.

Camera - Nikon D850
ISO - 250
Shutter Speed - 1/5000s
Aperture - f/4.0
Handheld
Manual

[kevin Hice]

Thanks for joining BPN and welcome. You will get some very good feedback that will help improve your skills. I love your image nice head turn and exposure looks good.Maybe lighten the iris some would stand out even more.The specular highlights really don't bother me much could clone those out also.
I would take out a little more on the top of the frame crop wise. TFS

[Aditya Sridhar]

Thanks Kevin! Great call on brightening the iris! I'll experiment with cloning the specular highlights and crop.

[annmpacheco]

Aditya, Welcome aboard and terrific first post. I would suggest a crop less on the RHS so we can enkoy the specular highlights and the great head turn. Well done

[Aditya Sridhar]

Thank you Ann! Here is an edit taking into account the suggestions that you and Kevin have put forward.

[John Mack]

The head turn towards you is great. Looks like the laughing gulls i see on the beach. Composoition looks nice.