Backlit Arctic Skua

It just seems like I can't find the time to join you guys regularly. The last year of my PhD research has started and I am absolutely swamped with work. Even so I will try to make the time share some of my photo's and critique here as much as possible.

Here is another shot from Spitsbergen that I processed a couple of moths ago but had not shown here yet. We found this territorial Skua perching on the Tundra keeping an eye out for intruders. As long as we didn't venture to close to the nest there was no panic and we could easily do our own photographical thing so the speak. Here I went for something a bit different. The light was nice and warm and the BG was mostly mountains which made for a ncie setting to do backlit shots.

Hope you like it,

Canon EOS 7D 1/640 f8
ISO 400
Canon 500mm L IS USM f4.0
Handheld

I like that you went for something different. The colors are wonderful! I think I might like it better if the bird were more of a silhouette, because the eye and other details tend to distract me from the scene.

Charles

Krijn:

Lovely colors, feel here. I see Charles point about pushing the bird more to a silhouette, but I can also see an attempt at just the most subtle of lightening of the catchlight in the eye to give a little spark to the bird, and leaving his overall exposure as is.

Lots of neat options with this fine capture. Comp is very nice too.

Randy

Love the mood, colors and lighting on this one just as it is.

Good job seeing this image.

Great backlighting effect here Krijn, and I like the colours in the FG, together with the two tone colours of the sky. Im with Randy here to try and pull some light onto the Skua.

I really like what you are doing here. Beautiful tonal in the sky and I like the rim light effect around the bird as well as the foreground rock and grass.

Awesome shot! Really like the grass, keeps the eye moving around. The 2 toned sky adds a huge amount for me. Rim lighting is great, maybe just brighten the eye a little. TFs

Gary.

Beautiful image and I love the creative look to this one. I agree w/ Randy regarding the eye. TFS Hope to see more.

I'd credit you for thinking creatively even if this shot weren't successful. But it is successful. The colors and composition are very fine. I don't know whether to agree with the "silhouette" argument or the "catchlight" tack. Thanks for giving me much food for thought.

Great bird, we usually see them far in flight here in MA, I envy you how close you got.
I like the image comp and idea very much. Agree with others about lightening the bird a bit.