Avocet, Yellowlegs & Sandpiper

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Good Morning,

This picture was photographed in early September at the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Alviso, CA. I am curious about your thoughts regarding the overlapping subjects.

Thanks. JR

Canon 40D, 400F5.6, F6.3, ISO-400, 1/2500s, EC +0.3, Av Mode, Evaluative Metering, AI Servo AF

Edit Note:

The picture shown now tries to incorporate Arthur's comments regarding a washed-out look. I did a slight curves adjustments for the middle tones. Would appreciate if that works better now.
Unfortunately, nothing I can do about the composition now. :o

[Maxis Gamez]

Hi John,

What a lovely looking bird you have here. I have to agree with you regarding the other birds in the BG. They are very distracting to your main subject. I also think that you should move your main subject off center.

Thanks!

[Jim Poor]

I like the way the drops are suspended in mid-air at the tip of the beak. Nice light & motion.

The oof birds in the BG don't really bother me that much, but they wouldn't be too hard to clone out and a crop from the right would help too.

I don't know if you have any frames taken after this one, but waiting until the bird took another step or two would have separated the subject from the BG birds unless they happened to keep pace too.

[Arthur Morris]

I like the line-up, wishing only that you had been one step more ahead of the front bird and that the Western Sandpiper, a female BTW, was back an inch or two... The image looks a bit washed out. Try adding 2 points of black to the Neutrals and the Blacks in Selective Color and/or applying a gentle Curves Adjusment (the linear curve pre-set in CS-3 is great.

later and love, artie

[Steve Foss]

The BG birds don't distract me at all. I like the diagonal line they form, and since they're all pointing the same way it makes my eye flow strongly to the left.