Siblings

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image of a pair of juvenile Wood Storks at a rookery in north Tampa, Florida. Seeing the successful breeding and nesting indicated by these juvenile Wood Storks gave me hope. These birds have been so endangered. The rookery is in a heavily populated urban area, it is a island surrounded by water in a small pond. The urban location most likely means fewer predators and safety for the nesting birds. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 500mm PF, camera and lens supported by a Oben carbon fiber monopod with a Wimberly MonoGimbal head
1/3200 F5.6 Matrix Metering EV 0 ISO 1600 Auto 1 WB, image captured at 500mm (750mm 35mm Equivalent)
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2022 and Topaz Denoise AI
Cropped for composition and presentation

[Randy Stout]

Joe:

I have always liked wood storks, such a combination of beauty and ugly. Well exposed, effective DOF, roughly matching head angles.

Several small white dots to the right of the birds. Might consider removing those. There is also a bit of a white/misty haze above the trunk on the far left.

Cheers

Randy

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like this very much there is really good detail in the plumage, I see the slight fuzziness Randy referred to but I have to confess I did not see it at first. I strongly suspect the small white flecks are bits of feathers. The subtle colours in the background make for a very pleasing presentation.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Joe:

I have always liked wood storks, such a combination of beauty and ugly. Well exposed, effective DOF, roughly matching head angles.

Several small white dots to the right of the birds. Might consider removing those. There is also a bit of a white/misty haze above the trunk on the far left.

Cheers

Randy

Hi Randy, thank you for viewing and commenting. I see the white/misty haze above the branch on the right, not sure what it is. I didn't do any work there or on the background, probably could remove it in Photoshop. I thought the two white spots might be feathers so I left them. Thanks again...

[Joseph Przybyla]

I like this very much there is really good detail in the plumage, I see the slight fuzziness Randy referred to but I have to confess I did not see it at first. I strongly suspect the small white flecks are bits of feathers. The subtle colours in the background make for a very pleasing presentation.

Hi Jon, thank you for viewing and commenting, much appreciated.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Joe ..
a nice capture of the two , posing on the dead branch . nicely isolated from bg and the details are looking good . the area in the lrc jumped straight into my eyes ....:w3... I have an idea what it is , but you have your own ideas about what I do call halos or masking issues .
personally I think the image is a bit thin in the tones and it is slightly on the cool side .... so I worked a bit on both with my RP . just an option to think about

tfs A

[Ramon Reyes]

This brings back memories of when I used to visit Gatorland. There were Storks at the rookery until they started building the zipline.
Last time I was there not so much activities with the Stork.

Well done, Joe on the exposure and composition.

Ramon

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Joe ..
a nice capture of the two , posing on the dead branch . nicely isolated from bg and the details are looking good . the area in the lrc jumped straight into my eyes ....:w3... I have an idea what it is , but you have your own ideas about what I do call halos or masking issues .
personally I think the image is a bit thin in the tones and it is slightly on the cool side .... so I worked a bit on both with my RP . just an option to think about

tfs A

Hi Andreas, thank you for viewing and commenting, much appreciated. I had thought I did not work on the background, I was wrong. In the lower left hand corner around the branches there was one patch of blue sky showing through the tree canopy that is the background. I painted over the blue with green obviously not going a great job. I fixed it. The image is a bit thin in tones and cool, the birds were in the shade of a large tree. Flat light, cool tones... I'll try adding a little more contrast. Thanks again...

[Joseph Przybyla]

This brings back memories of when I used to visit Gatorland. There were Storks at the rookery until they started building the zipline.
Last time I was there not so much activities with the Stork.

Well done, Joe on the exposure and composition.

Ramon

Hi Ramon, thank you for viewing and commenting. You are so right regarding the storks and Gatorland building the zipline. Before the pandemic I used to go to Gatorland often.

[Dorian Anderson]

I really like this image, particularly as as Andreas has presented it (more detail and less haze. heads might be too black though). I think the flat light really helped you in this instance; the image looks very painterly with the gently-dappled background.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting, much appreciated.