Long billed Curlew strikes a pose

[Grace Scalzo]

Rockport Beach, Texas. The only evening we had there with nice light in 9 days of vacation.

1/1600, f8. iso800
Canon 1dx, 600f4+ 2.0 tc + lowered RRS tripod

[Karl Egressy]

Great POV, IQ, pose and light, Grace. Love the two tone BG.

[Ian Cassell]

And what a pose he strikes! Love this one, Grace. The composition with the nice two-tone BG really does it for me.

[Bret Goddard]

Beautiful, vey nice light along with the pose and background.

[vishaljadhav]

Superb i image, the head turn is something very special
IQ and exposure are superb
I like the idea of keeping that brown line there at the top makes it very interesting to look at for the eye.

[keith mitchell]

Grace I can almost feel the warmth, bird looks perfect and that BG is something else, great shot.

Keith.

[Iain Barker]

Very Nice Grace. The light is fantastic and really show off the detail on the bird.
I also like the pose with its wings dropped.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

What a stunner!
Loving that killer light, the pose and the perfect profile makes this image stand out.

[Rob Melone]

A delightful image Grace with the low perspective, eye contact, light feather detail and background Wonderful!

[Steve Kaluski]

This is gorgeous Grace. I love the overall colours and muted blues, it makes for a great backdrop. Nice pose and the HA (IMHO) looks spot on. Getting low provides a perfect alignment with the subject and good eye contact.

If you have the time I might suggest flipping it, left to right, plus just look at the sharpening mask around the bill, there is a very small halo running along the top and slightly under the the beak, an easy fix but something that may get overlooked for other outputs perhaps? Nice work.

TFS
Steve

[Alan Murphy]

Beautiful pose and head angle. A crop off the top to lessen the dark are would improve the image IMO.

[dankearl]

This is just a superb photo, Grace.
It just pops off the screen and I love the BG.
A midge more DOF in front of the feet would have been really nice.

[Greg Oakley]

Beautiful image Grace - very much in your style - love it a lot ;-)

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely portrait, Grace. I like the upper band b/c it is soft and adds interest.

[Iain Barker]

If you have the time I might suggest flipping it, left to right,

Steve, I have seen this mentioned a few times recently. Why is it better for the subject to be on the right?

[Steve Kaluski]

Steve, I have seen this mentioned a few times recently. Why is it better for the subject to be on the right?

Hi Ian, sometimes the subject 'sits' better within frame and 'perhaps' easier on the eye, but all personal taste.

However, for me it stems from working in Advertising & Corporate design, the notion being that it was better to have the subject coming into frame from the right, oppose to coming in from the left and 'leaving' the frame, but like camera bodies, things change over time, likewise thoughts. If you flick through a magazine, quite often a good, full page image appears on the RH page, therefore if the subject was on the left part of frame, it would get lost within the 'gutter' (centre fold/margin). However, as presented here, If it looks good left or right, then great.

Hope this helps.

[Holger Leyrer]

Wonderful image with super light and BG. Love the pose and all details.

[Frank Schauf]

Great picture, nice deep shooting position and great eye contact.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hello Grace, love the image. Lighting, pose, background, could not be better. Judging from you comments regarding light during your nine days of vacation I think you were getting the same weather we were on the other side of the Gulf. Ansel Adams once said " Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop". I think this is one of those twelve.

[Grace Scalzo]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and comments. Joseph, I most appreciate you sharing Ansel Adam's comment as one of my goals is to edit much tighter this year and keep less junk. Appreciate the help.