Another Yellowlegs

[Bob Decker]

I liked this with the full reflection on the stil water included. 40D, Bigma @500mm, f/8.0, 1/1000, iso 400. RAW conversion via CS3 w/ slight sharpening, vibraonce, clarity and saturation boosts. Also cropped in Bridge, as presented represents about 75% of original image. A smidge of cloning, selective sharpening, despeckle and noise reduction in Photoshop, plus a curves tweak. Image was captured from a kayak.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bob Reflection wise I would like seeing a little more detail in the reflection before including, will see how others feel about it. If in doubt try a different. For reflection you will want to be a little higher, just for the bird as low as you can for that special look !!!

Looks like the light was from the left side and might reduce just a bit more for detail in the whites !!!

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bob - I am with AL - IMHO for my tastes just not enough detail in the reflection to warrant including.
Good HA and eye contact - as noted a little more detail possible in the whites.
Keep em coming :)

[Desmond Chan]

I'm fine with the reflection. Like the composition. If you want to, you can do some magic in Photoshop if you want a better reflection :D

[Bob Miller]

Hi Bob....I am afraid the reflection doesn't work for me....too blurry. Nice portrait of the bird

[Peter Farrell]

I like full reflections, but agree this one is not clear enough to keep.
Nice low angle, bg and lighting.
Peter

[Bob Decker]

Thanks everyone. FWIW, I mod a forum dedicated to the discussion of lighting techniques for portrait and event photography. One of the things we often encourage there is for posters to do a self critique after responses have slowed down. It's a good excercise and can help with one's learning I think. In that spirit, I'm going to talk/critique my own image. It would be interesting to here your thoughts on my own critique.

The image was shot with keeping the reflection in mind. I had several tight shots of this bird by the time I made this image. To me it's very much an either it works with the reflection or it can go in the trash can as I have stronger, tighter images of the bird without the reflection. Personally I don't feel a reflection needs a lot of detail to work. It can, and often is almost an impressionistic painting like representation of the subject. I think of reflections much like shadows; a graphical representation, not an exact one. But that's me and a personal taste thing. I will keep the preference for a more detailed reflection in mind in the future though.

After cropping the image I got curious and applied a variety of girds to it in order to see how it feel in comparision to "rules" like "thirds" and "the golden section." The bird's head is just inside the vertical thirds line at the top, and the reflected head at the bottom. Similarly, it's neart he verticle line for "golden section," mirrored in the reflection below. This wasn't particularly by strict design, but I find I compose on "thirds" and the "section" quite frequently and quite naturally without really thinking about it.

I liked the image enough to include it in a post on my blog about the species, but probably not enough to want to try a print of it. A year ago I'd have been "giddy" about the shot. Today I'm luke warm. Whether that indicates an improvement in my work or my taste, or doesn't really indicate anything is up for debate.

I've included a look at the image with both grids. The inside lines represent "golden section," the outer lines "thirds."

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bob I'm very glad you have a strong opinion regarding the image/reflection and are going with you feeling !! In my opinion the best way to go !!

In all the discussions we have we are only giving opinions and by no means are anything that should be cast in stone !! Its good to see and hear other points of view.

I think my main reason for not liking the reflection was the bird itself looks a little washes out and would like to see him with more detail in the light areas, I know it is a light bird to begging with. Regarding washed out reflections they can work and sometimes include (not often) and it is a case of "feel" more than anything else.

Great thread and love all the comments !!!