Would someone please pass that bar of soap?

[Ian Cassell]

A Willet making his own little vortex as he bathes at EB Forsythe NWR

Canon 7D
Canon 500/4 + 1.4x
1/1250 sec f/7. ISO 500 tripod/gimbal

CS6 for crop for comp and sharpening
Noiseware Pro on BG

[vishaljadhav]

Ian

I like the action captured here
somehow the composition doesnt work for my eye the bird going in the corner really takes the pop off the action , in case you have space to the left it may be interesting to see the bird centre
The water drops in the air are really interesting

[Ian Cassell]

LOL. I carefully cropped to get him out of the center! I will rework it when I get home from work.

[Arthur Morris]

Bathing bird images often work best with the subject in the center. While this is interesting the image is hurt by the sheet of water covering the face and especially the eye....

Have you ever been to Brigantine NWR ?

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks for commenting, Artie, and, the more I look at it, the more I agree with your assessment.

Brigantine NWR is actually the Southern Division of EB Forsythe NWR (the Northern Division is the Barnegat Division). These were taken at the Brigantine Division (about 20 minutes from a small house I have that was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Sandy). I was working on pulling the house back together Memorial Day week (it was stripped down to the studs), but managed to spend a couple of hours each day at Forsythe. The place was closed after the storm but was finally fully re-opened in April. I'll be back there the first couple of weeks in July to do house work (and get some birds too :) ). In case you're wondering why I have a place on the NJ shore 2800 miles from Phoenix, I bought it when I lived in Philadelphia before I moved out west.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Ian. I wash joshing you about "Brigantine." Thus the smile face. When I lived in NYC what is not called EBF was called Brigantine or just plain Brig. To me it will always be Brigantine. :)

[PhilCook]

He/she looks like he/she is about the sucked down by a vortex/whirlpool....that's quite some dent he's made on the water surface. Sharp and nice light, have to agree though that in this case the subject would be a little better more centered and retaining the whole disturbed water surface

[Ian Cassell]

LOL, Artie. Yes, we always called it Brigantine when I lived in Philly, but didn't realize you knew the place. I love the refuge ... there's always lots of interesting stuff to shoot. It is sort of a pain, though, that the road is a bit elevated and they really discourage you from walking down the banks to get at eye-level with the birds.