Great Blue Heron Portrait

[Sid Garige]

Estero Lagoon
Canon 7D 500mm F4
F8 1/1600

[annmpacheco]

Hi Sid,
I like the high key effect here. Good pose, like the vertical and the sharpness. beautiful colors. TFS, ann

[Clemens Vanderwerf]

Nice BKGD and exposure. Beautiful details in the neck. HA could be better.

[ChasMcRae]

I like the lighting-even all over -high clouds ?
Great detail of portrait and nice smooth background all emphasizing the subject.
I Probably preferred body more profile and then head turn however after looking closer this may have put more of the shadow on the back of the bird.

[Tom Redd]

Sid, beautiful shot, excellent BG, color, details and exposure. I agree that the HA could be a bit better, but I will take this HA over the shadow that more turn of the head would have caused - as Charles noted. Well done! Excellent shoot this weekend and thank you for the Charity Avian Workshop!

[Daniel Cadieux]

HA looks good to me, as does the rest of the image. Had the heron raised its necjk a wee bit the shadow on the back may have disappeared...but just an all around stunning portrait.

[Todd Frost]

Very well done Sid. As I am not a member of the HA police or a follower of their preaching, HA looks fine to me. It amazes me how hung up some are with this, obvious is one thing but... :2eyes2:. Agree with Daniel here, an all around stunning portrait.
TFS
Todd

[Levina de Ruijter]

A beautiful portrait. I love the pastel like quality of the colours. Stunning indeed.

[Sid Garige]

Sid, beautiful shot, excellent BG, color, details and exposure. I agree that the HA could be a bit better, but I will take this HA over the shadow that more turn of the head would have caused - as Charles noted. Well done! Excellent shoot this weekend and thank you for the Charity Avian Workshop!

Tom,

Always a pleasure. Thanks for the great company.

-Sid

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Great portrait.

[Chris Korman]

I like the framing and pose, though I do wish to know why you chose to clip the plumage coming off the base of the neck. I am curious to know if you had framed it to originally include, but then moved up to include more room above the head.

[Dave Leroy]

Interesting bg. It is very light and blends with bird and yet is very effective.

I have opportunities to shoot lots of these and yet i never seem to get them right.

I really like this one and perhaps you have given me some encouragement!!

Dof works very well with slightly angled bird.

Very well done.

Dave

[Sid Garige]

I like the framing and pose, though I do wish to know why you chose to clip the plumage coming off the base of the neck. I am curious to know if you had framed it to originally include, but then moved up to include more room above the head.

Chris,
Intent was to make a tight vertical portrait of the subject. Plumes at the base of the neck kind of extend all the way to the legs. Since I was looking for a tight portrait I did not want to include the legs. That is the reason behind cutting the plumes at the bottom of the frame.

I always shoot with little bit of space around for stock images and crop my final version out of it. Here is the original out of camera.

[Chris Korman]

Sid, thank you for the anatomy lesson on this one :) , I had thought the plumage might not extend to the legs. I now appreciate your decision to crop it there.

[Stu Bowie]

Great detail Sid, and I like the angled pose. The colour in the BG compliments the heron nicely.

[denise ippolito]

Sid, Very nicely cropped and I like the pose and sharp details.

[Vivaldo Damilano]

This bird looks similar to our Grey Heron, have a look at my post today. I like the tight crop Sid, head angle, plain BG and good detail. Great portrait TFS:cheers::cheers:

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Sidd, excellent tight portrait with some sharp details. A little tighter from bottom might work as well.

[Don Lacy]

Lovely image Sid the BG compliments the subject nicely and I think you cropped it perfect.