Preening Beauty - Wild Turkey.

It's not often I like a bird image with the eye closed (unless the subject is obviously sleeping), but this one caught my eye regardless. Yes, I was hoping for it to open up its eye, even for half a second, but at no time did it do so during the actual preening duties, but of course did so anytime it stopped. That's fine, I like it anyways for many reasons!:t3. What do you think? Would you have preferred for the turkey to offer an open eye instead, or does this work for you?

Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/500s., f/4.5 (must have accidentally knocked the wheel by one click), ISO 1600, natural light, handheld, FF, and few imperfections in the BG smoothed out.

Beautiful colors. I have no problem with closed eye.

Trick is to get the eye parallel in the frame

TFS

Daniel, for some reason the richness and feel of this frame really stick out to me. Not sure what it is but colors incl some iridescence, the fall feeling bkg and the composition work very well.

Your processing skills showed up nicely here - a real authenticity and clarity.

For all these reasons, I really don't mind the eye here. BTW, who wrote the book on the BPN photo mandates anyway??

Works for me. The pose, colors and comp are stunning.

DATPCA. I think that if the bird had opened its eye, the image would not have been as strong. The pastel reds, yellows, and blues along with the coy pose make the bird look super-shy.

with love, a

Magnificent picture

Hi Daniel .... honestly I am 50/50 on the closed eye .
The rest is looking great ....in terms of comp , design , color and tones .
I do really love the color patterns and repetitions in the neck area !!!

Nice work and well worth to photograph such things

Very nice and TFS Andreas

First thing I thought of...when I opened was Volcano....:S3:....Looks great Dan...Love the colours throughout and feather detail....The closed eye don't bother me...it would spoil the volcano eruption if open..

Will

Great view of this hen. Love the colors. Nice detail as well. Framing is bang on.