Commandeering the Perch

[WIlliam Maroldo]

1/1600sec/f10/ISO400/500mm
In this image a ring billed gull is taking a piling as a perch from a royal tern. Although it would be exceeding easy to give room for the tern to "fly into" in PS, there is a degree of tension created by placing the bird close to the edge, and it seems appropriate.
Any criticism or comments would be appreciated. regards~Bill

[Daniel Cadieux]

Typical behaviour from these "bullies", and well captured by you. I understand your vision about the tight crop but I would still be tempted to give the image a bit more breathing room at top, right, and bottom - you can still do it without losing the "tension" we feel here as not a whole lot more room is needed. A couple of dust bunnies need to be cleaned up.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Wonderful action you captured with excellent exposure and detail. I agree with daniel and the crop. Congratulations on a fine capture William. Your timing was great !!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great behavior captured. I agree on more room and might lighten it a bit.

[Jason Franke]

First, I don't think that's a Ring-billed Gull. My, rather novice, identification marks it as a Herring Gull. I’m looking at the pink instead of yellow legs and the apparent red spot on the lower mandible as opposed to a readily visible black ring around the whole bill as field marks. There are a couple of other possibilities, but the wing tip pattern and assumed location and time (TX, now) also seems constant with a Herring, as well.

Speaking to the technical points:
The image is a bit dark; the whites on both the Gull and Tern aren’t as white as I would expect them to be. Also, there is some dusting that needs to be done. On the up side, the horizon is level and the color doesn’t look obviously off to me.
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Speaking to pose:
The action looks good. I especially like the landing Gull’s pose.
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Speaking to composition:
(From this point on take this for what it’s wroth--pretty much a grain of salt in my opinion--but I’m trying to take apart images graphically to understand what makes them tick.)
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The tight framing to the right further tends to reduce the visual significance of the Tern within the image. It’s already somewhat less significant due to both its physical size relative to the Gull and it’s more flattened wing positions. With the cropping as is, I think the Tern can pretty much be cloned out and with no other changes in framing, you wouldn’t loose too much of the quality of the image (other than telling a different story, obviously).
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The extra space does two things to my eye; first, it makes it more clear that the Tern is fleeing and not just flying by or some other incidental commingling. Partially because it offsets the whole composition slightly adding some tension to what is otherwise somewhat balanced. It also gives the Tern vacant canvas to be drawn into. The negative space suggesting some urgency or speed to the Tern filling it (reinforcing being run off). Also, the more central position of the Tern serves to places more emphasis on it, which I think is necessary given its lighter visual weight.
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Second, the extra canvas allows for the perception stronger s-shaped vector (motion) from the top of the perch to motion towards the right as opposed to more direct, less interesting, line towards the corner. The image flows from left to right, dominated by eye-lines, the pier’s slant and the strong motion vector of the Tern and the horizon line. Motion towards the right side of the frame (real or otherwise) instead of down helps reinforce the urgency in leaving the piling. Besides being consistent with expectations about bird take-off from a raised structure (diving some before gaining altitude), it helps tie the bird back more strongly to the vacated piling again reinforcing the story. This is also important because the Tern’s tail alone isn’t a strong indicator of its origin. The tail gets lost in the ocean-sky transition so the bulk of the perceived motion is dependant on the curve in the birds back and its sight-line. Lacking the extra space, the Tern’s dominating vectors are its sight-line (down and right) and the leading wing and body/head angle (down and right) which, while still showing some inkling of its origin, it’s not nearly as strong.
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Wow, that was longer than I expected it to be when I started writing it.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanks for the input!
1)The dust bunnys (sensor dirt) is something I can't believe I missed. I immediately went back to the RAW, and felt better when they were hardly noticeable, and the JPEG conversion is what really brought them out. No real problem in get rid of them.
2) The exposure needs to be lightened. This I agree with, and again, no problem doing that. I was overly concerned with the highlights and got carried away with curves.
3) Yea, V Jason, you are correct. Juvenile Herring, pink legs a definite indication. I wasn't really thinking ID, and if I thought about it, I would have made a better ID.
4) Composition: V Jason: I am really happy to see your analysis of composition, and you are certainly a breathe of fresh air to someone who places a great deal of importance to composition, and the common suggestions of adding or cropping canvas without concrete reasons has always been less than helpful. Especially useful is your explanation of the advantages of expanding the canvas in this image and the effects on perceived motion. Excellent points made, and I am in strong agreement, except I would never clone the tern out!
Anyway, I appreciate the analysis. regards~Bill
I'll get back to the original RAW image later and implement the suggestions made, and post it here.

[Jason Franke]

Thanks for the input!
Excellent points made, and I am in strong agreement, except I would never clone the tern out!


Neither would I.

If anything I'd clone the gull out, I like terns more than gulls. :p

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Got rid of the sensor dirt, and corrected the exposure problem (I think). I was concerned earlier about the whites being blown. According to checking the whites with the eyedropper tool (in CS4) they seem OK.
Did a larger crop (actually much like to original RAW), and added to the canvas on the right. I'm not real sure if I got it right though. regards~Bill

I just looked at the image I posted here and there seems to be too much contrast. Sounds like a job for inverse curves. Later.