I like the pose and the cool colors. This is one of those almost, but not quite there shots for me. The heavy shadows on the bird are not ideal. I would prefer the wings to be raised more as well. Looks like you have a sharpening type halo around the bird, especially the front of the rear wing and around the head.
Sharp. Isaac's shadows are caused by working well off light angle ... Neat comparing this bird with our Great Egret.
with love, artie
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Thank you all for the feedback.
Isaac: The halo is due to my poor cloning of a lighter band of colour that ran through the frame at midpoint...I wanted to even out the blue colour. I'll re-edit this one. Cheers.
Paul it is vital that you make a proper selection on your bird and work with layers so that you can do these kinds of edits and not have halos. Processing is equally as important as making the photo in the field. Not trying to spend your money but i think you should pick up some of Arties excellent and thorough processing guides that cover this kind of stuff. I have some of them and learned a great deal from them and ise many of the things that I learned on images I post jere, including the bunting that Inposted today. It is a tiny fraction of the cost of gear but makes a huge impact on final presentation. Often times more of an impact than the gear that we spend thousands or tens of thousands on. If a file is not processed correcty you can easily ruin it. Processing is something I work on all the time. Always trying to learn new methods and tools that I can use to make the photos that we work so hard for in the field look their very best.