Misty morning Indigo Bunting from Nashville, TN

[Dorian Anderson]

Would have preferred more profile, but the moist foliage forced me to keep this frame, my first of this open country species. Perch carries the shot as far as I'm concerned.

Canon 600mm f/4 IS II + 1.4x III on EOS R5
1/1600 at f/5.6, ISO 1600
Processed in LR CC and Topaz. Clone out a few poops, the perch apparently a favorite

193513

[Brian Sump]

Dorian, this beautiful and somewhat rare songbird carries the frame man. What a handsome fella.

I had my first encounter with one last summer and it was quite memorable. They are so small but pack a gorgeous plumage.

The overall composition and colors work very well. Agree with you on the wet leaves. Really nice details shown.

You might consider giving just a little kick in the pants in terms of boosting the tones. Perhaps just a touch muted or flat overeall, but purely subjective.

Thanks for sharing.

[Dorian Anderson]

Dorian, this beautiful and somewhat rare songbird carries the frame man. What a handsome fella.

I had my first encounter with one last summer and it was quite memorable. They are so small but pack a gorgeous plumage.

The overall composition and colors work very well. Agree with you on the wet leaves. Really nice details shown.

You might consider giving just a little kick in the pants in terms of boosting the tones. Perhaps just a touch muted or flat overeall, but purely subjective.

Thanks for sharing.

Totally hear the comment about the tones looking a bit thin; I thought the same thing when I looked back at the image this morning. Cheers!

193514

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Dorian, love the image, wish I had the opportunity. It is too bad that we all are not using the same displays calibrated the same to view the images posted because on my screen I like your original post better. Raising the blacks a small amount I think improves the image retaining the lovely soft blues of the bird. Thank you for posting, really nice image and opportunity.

[Bill Dix]

Lovely image of a lovely bird. I don't mind the muted, misty look of the OP, but both are very nice. They are fairly common in our local open spaces here, although the County's "management" of the grasslands, by prescribed burning and removal of the invasive Autumn Olives has taken away some of their favorite singing perches, so I haven't seen them so frequently in the past few years.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Dorian, While I love the soft light and the foliage in this one and in the Bobolink image, the thing that bugs me about each of them as posted is that the bird is on our right side of the frame looking to our right out of the frame ... If that makes sense. Anyhoo, the repost addresses my concerns.

with love, artie

ps: I did my best with your signature.

[Arthur Morris]

Another way of saying the same thing is that there is just too much room behind the subject ...

with love, artie

[Dorian Anderson]

Another way of saying the same thing is that there is just too much room behind the subject ...

with love, artie

It's funny - I'm obsessive about placing the subject off-center in landscape/horizontal crops (and often well off-center to exaggerate the negative space like with my recent Wild Turkey and Dickcissel), but I don't worry about it nearly as much in portrait/vertical crops (Bobolink, Indigo Bunting, Swainson's Warbler). Not sure why that is......

[Arthur Morris]

ps: The bird is off-center, just on the wrong side (for my brain).

with love, artie

[arash_hazeghi]

beautiful image of handsome rare bird, love the BG and the environment. I tend to like Arite's repost with less room. I also like the repost with added contrast

greatjob, a pleasure to view as always

TFS

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Dorian .... oh i love the contrast between bird and surroundings !!
Very well captured , IMHO.
Personally I would tweak the subject even more .... surprised to see the " flat " appearance in one of your images , as you normally push things harder than I would do .

Stunning image

TFS Andreas