Get Out of My Way

[Randy Stout]

This juvenile trumpeter swan was throwing his weight around, chasing the mallards. I thought the bill into the water and the flared wings added a bit of menace to his pose.

The funny thing was, two frames later, one of his sibs came over and started chasing him around. A real pecking order. (Maybe he was just grumpy about being picked on by his sibs and took it out on the mallards.)

My major question about this image is whether the out of focus mallards are a strong enough story component that they work here?

D700 600mm EFL, f/6.3 1/800s ISO 800 Manual Beamer with SB800 (Very dark day)

Post: CS5 selective sharpening Full frame.

Advice always appreciated

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Love the sharp swan and the excellent use of flash but the clipping of the offending mallards is a cardinal sin. You needed a 500mm lens :)

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

Well, I don't want to be committing a cardinal sin. I have done penance and hope to not be excommunicated from BPN!

Cheers

Randy

[Andrew Merwin]

Randy, I find the mallards distracting. For me, this image is all about the swan & it's wonderful pose. If it were mine & if I had the software to do it, I would crop out the mallards & add canvas below the swan.

[Arthur Morris]

Much better. Good job on the de-Mallardarizing.

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Randy, to get yet another perspective I'd prefer the first posting but with the mallards completely included. Pose, exposure and sharpness of the swan are great. JR

[Christopher Marek]

In a perfect world, all the mallards of the original posting would have not been clipped. You need the mallards to tell the story of course. It would have looked odd to have no mallards at all (to set the context of the swans behaviour.)