Dikkop

[Jeni Williams]

Direct translation = Thick head........not sure who it is referring to. I feel that way today- no matter what I did couldn't get the ss up:o:confused:
.
Canon 40D
focal length: 420mm (300mmf/4 + 1.4x)
f/5.6
exp. time 1/200sec :o

It was overcast and early in a.m time 07h05. Hills up against one side blocking light.
Help please.!!!

[Ramon M. Casares]

Lovely light and BG, colours and pose, a better head turn would've made this one even better! Congratulations!

Ps: What I do find very distracting is the frame and the words in the image.

[Tony Whitehead]

Interesting bird, Jeni. They remind me of Australian Stone-curlews. I agree with Ramon regarding the head - the whole bird is facing a little bit away. It has a very yellow/orange look to it but the grass colours look fairly natural for South Africa - if shot as a raw file I might try and reprocess with a slightly more blue colour temp and maybe a slight tint adjustment. The dew on the grass is looking oiversharpened and I would mask the shapening to the bird only and maybe blur the rest. The frame is distracting and there is some funny ghosting of the line up near the top of the image. Maybe a little more room around the bird. Look forwrd to more of your photos - seeing African birds makes me miss KZN

[Loukie Viljoen]

Jeni the name comes a long way, the Afrikaans name was Dikkop, this referred to the unusual thick knee joint, as in Afrikaans the knee is a "knie kop", the English translation is a translation of thick knee from dikkop, to thick knee.. Hope it helps, good photo, sorry so much of the legs are in the grass.