My grandmother used to call small quarrels "dust-ups". I was photographing my favorite gull, this iceland, who has returned to winter at the same beach on Long Island for about 8 years now. He was minding his business finding fornucata morsels in the waves when a herring gull dove in after the same one. The herring wasn't looking for a quarrel, it just happened, and the iceland quickly took charge and let him know who got there first.
Thank you for looking and for your comments.
1/3200, f 6.3, iso800
Canon 1dx, 600f4 + 1.4tc + blubb from car window (Backed down a boat launch ramp)
The wonderful image quality, interaction, sharpness, and nice control of the whites and the fact you didn't mention the clipping of wings adds to what's important here, Grace. Quick work captured this expressive moment. Love the look in the Iceland gull's eye.
Pretty neat interaction here Grace, you captured it nicely. Perfect whites, and I like the active surf. Clipped wings is a fact of bird photography, especially action, and especially with fixed focal lengths. Strategically cropping to cut the wings almost always works well. here included. I'd even go farther and try a version with the farthest wing at right cut too. Great stuff though. I like it a lot!
Grace, I really like this shot. Super detail and everything about it adds to the action of the moment. The foam and splashed water drops add a lot, all the way up to the tiny droplets in the upper right. The framing offset to the left adds to the pushing that was going on here. Very nicely done.
Hi Grace,
I am trying to like this but...
The image feels too tight on the LHS for me.I wish for the wing to not be cut off.
Daniel has a good idea to crop in tighter and that would eliminate the feeling that more space is needed on the right and focus the eye more on the gulls heads.
Having both wings cropped out would add a symmetrical feel to the image.The whites and the sharpness are perfect and technically all is good.
Gail
I almost always post images that I am not totally satisfied with...this is a learning forum after all. I purposefully put up version 1 of this image and didn't mention the clipped wing of the herring gull to try and draw out unbiased opinions. Here is my v2. Not sure that I'm sold on this either . As luck would have it, the previous frame has perfect sharpness, no clipped wings, and not a good expression on the face of the iceland. :(
I like the repost Grace. We're zoomed in on the action and the comp feels more balanced IMO. I'm not much of a cropper, except for compositional reasons, so I can understand the reluctance to crop so much in the first place (especially if it was already cropped on the OP).
Thank you for weighing in again, Daniel. The original post was very minimally cropped, so lots to play with here. Just a guess, but the repost must to be at least 75% of the original capture.
Iceland and Herring Gull Dust-up
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