When I photographed this, I liked the way the OOF background Dowitcher's position mirrored the position of the foreground bird. Now I'm not sure if it works. Thoughts?
Hi Ian. I try to not follow the "Trained " school of thought ,in that only a single bird with a muted background makes for the best photograph .Even though it does seem to hold true most of the time .Above that I think we all are looking for a new perspective, or new look (If you will ) .This shot for me almost works . Following my eye mentally ,I look at the front bird ,find him pleasing ,then study the back bird . Yep, can see the eye and recognize the position , then back to the front bird ,and on to the background ,then off the page. The amount of time gazing at this photo is longer than if it were just a single bird. the Bg is nice .the main subject is focused .there is enough separation between the birds to get by with ,BUT ,I feel if there were even more distance between the Subjects the photo would be stronger .I enjoyed looking at it ,and you have a great photograph . just wish I didn't have to work as hard to recognize the beak of the primary subject .
Clyde has said everything I wanted to, haha. The idea is good, however I generally have two loose guidelines doing juxtapositions - 1/ separation of primary and secondary and 2/ dof involved
If the birds intersect, as yours do, I would've preferred a shallower dof to let the first bird stand out, ESPECIALLY as it's the head that intersects, and not the tail. Once the birds are physically separated enough I think it's not that big of a deal to have a deep dof.
I like the main subject with the scratching pose, nice light and colors and low angle. It does not work for me having the 2nd bird behind with all this overlap of the bodies. I agree with the comments above; it would be nice to have more separation between birds where body parts don't intersect and more DOF between he two birds, or not to have the 2nd bird at all.
Thanks for posting and asking for feedback, thats how we improve. As you know, you are the photographer and control the frame. In this image the second bird is so OOF the picture lacks harmony and balance. It is challenging to move from a subject with a clean well lit eye to a subject where the eye is in such a different state. Keep at it and others might disagree,..keep em coming!
Itch
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