Black-necked stilts, something different

[Greg Basco]

Hi to all. I tried something different on this image. I was shooting these black-necked stilts at some salt ponds on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast in the early morning. I got some decent images with frontal light and nice darkish green water but they were pretty ordinary. I decided to turn around and shoot into the full sun to render the water as blown-out white thinking of a kind of graphic design image.

I'll be interested to read what people think.

http://www.deepgreenphotography.com/forums/stiltshighkey.jpg

Tech: Canon 20D, 300 mm f2.8, 2x, handheld, f13, 1/800, ISO 200, full-frame, a bit of PS cleanup on a few spots of floating detritus

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[denise ippolito]

Greg, I love it! The high-key BG is great and goes well with the subjects.Really nice composition with the inclusion of the reflections.

[Randy Stout]

Greg:

I love the symmetry of the two birds, which is mirrored by their reflectoins. I might crop a bit from left and top. Striking. A good lesson to us all to turn around, look at whats going on behind, think out of the box.

Randy

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great high-key image. I like the poses and agree with Randy's crop suggestion.

[Tony Whitehead]

This is superb, Greg. I have to admit to being a high key fan and this really works for me. I like the crop as presented. The matching poses and slightly rippled reflections are lovely. The thin black frame works perfectly for presentation. Well done.

[Marko Matesic]

I really like it....Lovely composition :)

[Ramon M. Casares]

LOVE IT! Great choice and great result, love thec comp and the poses, refection are a huge plus and nothing else.. I just love it! :) Congratulatios!

[Ilija Dukovski]

Very nice, great ideas...

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Like it a lot Greg !!!! Love the high key and the very lovely composition. Well done.

[Deborah Harrison]

I think the black and white with the contrasting red legs is stunning. It really works - lovely.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very striking image. I like Randy's crop idea. I would also clean up the white horizontal streak found on both faces in the reflections. Don't get me wrong, I love this image alot...but I can only imagine how much more stronger it would be if both birds were looking more towards you. Congratulations on spotting this excellent opportunity!!

[Jasper Doest]

These birds work very well in high-key. I've seen similar photographs before and I'm having a hard time not to compare them. That said I find this composition slightly dull, but that is mainly because both birds are at the same line in nearly the same pose.