Australasian Gannet

[Tony Whitehead]

Image made in April 2008 at Muriwai, a breeding colony northwest of Auckland. This was one of the few birds left toward the end of the breeding season coming in to land against a backdrop of breaking waves. I like the symmetry and pose of the wings with the fanned tail and spread feet preparing to land. I would prefer some eye contact but the bird is looking down to land and the vantage point is restricted to a platform on the cliff which is above the birds.
Nikon D300
Nikon 200-40 @ 200mm
ISO400 1/4000 f4
comments and advice welcome as always

[Daniel Cadieux]

At first glance it I thought it was carrying a stick...but of course they can't do that with their palmed feet :-). Nice overall pose - I like the fanned tail, and the crashing wave is superb! I too wish for more eye contact.

[Doug Brown]

I like the symmetry and the placement of the bird in the center of the frame. The BG is dynamic. Eye contact is always a good thing, but this image works in its own way.

[Juan Aragonés]

A neat eye contact would be great but I think that with such a great BG, simetry and sharpness this image doesn´t needs eye contact. I am not sure but it seems that the image has a blue/cyan cast (I am at the office now and my monitor is not calibrated) a touch of additional contrast, mostly on the BG, and saturation increase would also produce anicer result. Well done!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose, details and I really like the BG, too. The lack of eye contact doesn't bother me at all.

[Rene Quenneville]

I love this powerful composition. I also see a slight blue cast on my monitor. You could try to put a grad filter in photoshop, running from the bottom of the picture to the feet of the bird. It could add some drama to this beautiful scene.

[Tony Whitehead]

Thanks for the comments and advice guys. The blue cast had escaped me in preserving the colour in the water but by correcting the bird and leaving the water I think it looks better. Thanks for the suggestion re the grad, Rene. I have tried it in this version but chosen to burn the lower portion of the image instead of using a grad as I had already applied a burn to the corners and felt it blended in better

[Tony House]

Re-post for me, great pose and what a B/G... Eye contact doesn't bother me...

Nice work.
Tony

[Kris Mortensen]

Love this shot!