Yellow-Crowned Night Heron

[Scott Goetz]

OK, so I have lots of thoughts and questions about this one.
So many of the wonderful images Artie creates and we emulate have nice, clean, non-distracting, complementary backgrounds. This aint one of them.
Found nestled in the trees and shot through an opening in the leaves.

Does this worK? Too cluttered? Too obscured? Or does the natural setting fit? Is it even a keeper?
How about the vignetting? I added a bit to reduce the distracting elements, add the the spotlight kind of effect on the bird.

Other thoughts?

Thx.
Scott

From Ding Darling NWR
Canon 50D
100-400L IS @ 220 mm
f10, 1/640s, ISO 800
Hand-held.

http://goetzphotoz.smugmug.com/photos/491398494_anTe9-XL.jpg

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I don't mind the BG at all, the OOF leaves in the foreground are a bit distracting, though. I would try to remove the color noise.

[Dick Glover]

I do not mind the BG either, and I really like the portrait of the birds head. Have you tried a horizontal crop of just the upper part of the image above the OOF leaves? Thanks for sharing.
Dick

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like it, and think it works for the most part. The FG OOF leaves wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so blatantly in front of the bird. I do love the BG leaves at top though. The vignetting does give the effect of spotlighting the subject. I would probably crop to above the lowest horizontal branch skimming the bottom as that would give the bottom edge a cleaner finish.

[Beth Goffe]

Scott, nice night heron image! I don't mind the leaves in the front although they do need some noise reduction. I agree with Daniel's comment about the crop and vignetting. Maybe a little more sharpening on the bird as well.

[Paul Marcellini]

I say darken and desat the foreground leaves and you have a keeper. Different than the majority of bird images. It feels real intimate.

[Mike Boyce]

You've got a keeper Scott.

I too don't mind the OOF front leaves and don't mind those behind. We all can't be Artie Morris, nor should we be. We all need to learn as much as we can from Artie and the other great photographers here and everywhere, and then develope our own signiture style. I'm no Photoshop whiz, but if you wanted to play with some techniques, you could try a glausian blur of a BG layer. As for noise removal, I don't mind the noise in the OOF front leaves.

When I here folks suggest noise removal I'm reminded of the great painters of the past who once tried to hide there brush strokes and later realized that great art can be made with and without visible brush strokes. If it doesn't bother you, leave it in, but try it both ways so you can work with intention.

Nice heron!

[Scott Goetz]

Thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback and excellent suggestions. I am reworking the image, encorporating suggestions you have all made. A crop off the bottom, a bit of desaturation and darkening of foreground vegetation as Paul suggested, and a tad of noise reduction and selective sharpening.

Much appreciated!
Scott