Greater Yellowlegs

[Jake Levin]

We just had the leftovers of hurricane Harvey move through, so the Châteauguay river was quite high and the normal 'pipers and plovers weren't around, but the yellowlegs (yellowlegses?) certainly were. This was the only greater in a group of 12 or so lesser.

1/640 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 7d mkII and 500mm f/4 IS lens. Framed as shot, sitting in the middle of the river (only 6 inches deep or so) in my fishing waders. Levels and detail extractor in PS. Sainte-Martine, Québec.

[Isaac Grant]

Hi Jake. I love sandpipers and will click on shots of them every time. I like the pose you have here and I think it tells the story of the bird being comfortable with your presence which is always great. Did the following:

Cropped this differently and left the room on the left side of the frame and not the right side. Give room for the bird to look into. Had to add canvas and clone in some water
Increased the exposure of the whole shot and added some contrast
Added a few points of black in selective color to the neutrals and the blacks and took a few away on the whites
The water and background seems too dull and gray so I added some saturation to it and used the NIK white neutralizer at 50% opacity add some blues to the water
Used a tonal contrast/de mask on the bird only at 25% opacity and smart sharpened at .2 and 50%.
You posted this shot quite small and I think that the image quality is suffering a bit from it. It is hard to work off of such a small file but just giving an idea of what I think could be done with the shot. My background is probably too blue but again just showing that you can always add color to what is an otherwise pale shot.

[Jake Levin]

You're right, the composition is totally wrong. Either I find some water in another photo of the same burst that I can use as a patch for the left side, or this turns into recycle bin fodder.