Oh what a Lovely Stick

[Roger Clark]

Great Blue Herons, Delivering a Stick for the Nest

This is a two frame mosaic taken in 2003 and I've reprocessed it for an event for a 20x20-inch print. What do you think of the square crop? My other choice is a 16x24-inch print, which I think makes the image too tall and it feels confining on the sides (I do have more image below the nest).

Canon D60 + 500 mm lens at f/4, 1/200 second at ISO 200.

Roger

[Marina Scarr]

Love the behavior and details in the feathers. The whites on the left heron's cheek look a tad hot. I like the nest and the BG very much here. I understand why you have gone with this crop, and it does work for this particular image b/c the herons are not standing tall in this particular capture. The right heron's head being angled away from the viewer makes this images a little less powerful IMHO.

[gail bisson]

Hi Roger,
I really like the interaction. I have always liked square crops ( I am in the minority) so I am OK with the comp. I see a real green cast to this image and the whites around the left bird's bill are quite hot. I would try to tone those down a bit as well as the highlights in the right bird's left leg,
gail

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Hey Roger, you've captured such a great moment - it trumps any other "issues" I can think of.
I am absolutely fine with the HAs; it's all about the moment and I rather like that they're not posing for the viewer
I find it a bit tight on the top (the male will bump his head on the ceiling after he's done delivering the stick ;)
I'd love to see this as a vertical.

[Roger Clark]

Hello Marina, Gail, and Sidharth,

Thank you for the comments. You are correct about the hot areas. That was my 2003 processing, so I took some time and redid the image, attached. There were also many small hot spots on the leaves and twigs that I also fixed. I also did a small tweak on color balance to make it less yellow.

Roger

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the interaction and the view of the nest, shooting angle is good and not steep I just wish the right one had slightly better HA but it is not bad as is. For cropping you can go 4X3 including a bit more from the nest.

I reduced the color cast and smoothed the BG bokeh. I also reduced the contrast a bit as the OP looked a bit contrasty. I guess you shot this in JPEG mode back in 2003.

109666

[Frank Schauf]

Nice behavior and details, Roger.

[Troy Lim]

Nice capture, Arash's repost looks better, less green cast.

[Robert Holguin]

Real nice shot. Excellent timing capturing this interaction, the head angles dont bother me here. I like the colors in Arash's repost.
Well done.