Highkey - does it work?

[Rosl Roessner]

This is an image I made at the Farne Islands.
There was a lot of fog an rain and I created that highkey image of the arctic tern.
I am not sure, if it works?

What can I do, to make it work?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

It works for me, I like the mood and pose in this one. I would go for a tighter crop, though.

[Glenn Wheeler]

I agree on the tighter crop and would usually not like an image like this as well as a clearer image. BUT, I do like this one. It has a very ethereal feel and mood to it, especially with the tern's pose and the translucence of the feathers, etc.

Works for me!

[Rosl Roessner]

Thanks for looking at the picture.
When you would crop it, where would you place the bird? I played with different compositions and am not really satisfied with it.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks for looking at the picture.
When you would crop it, where would you place the bird? I played with different compositions and am not really satisfied with it.

I would place him somewhere in the upper right (just a bit off center) because of the look down and slight head turn to the left. Something like this maybe.

[Kjeld Smed]

I would place him somewhere in the upper right (just a bit off center) because of the look down and slight head turn to the left.

Axel "stole" my words.
Very nice picture.
Kjeld

[Rosl Roessner]

Thank You Axel,
this is what I was playing with; I thought that the bird needs more space in the direction where it looks at.
But I realise that I have a tendency to give the birds too much room in my pictures

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thank You Axel,
this is what I was playing with; I thought that the bird needs more space in the direction where it looks at.
But I realise that I have a tendency to give the birds too much room in my pictures

That is better than cropping them too tight. :) You could also play with the black levels for a bit more contrast. When you raise it to about 50 the image looks quite different. I'm not sure though if you would like it better.

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Rosl,

Very nice job on Axel's crop. I would like to see the head blacks a little darker. Go to Image>Adjustments>Selective color and from the drop menu select Blacks and add a few points to the blacks. That should look better.

I like High Key images a lot!

[Anita Rakestraw]

I LOVE this, Rosl! I like it better with the space around it that you have in your original post, but do like the off-center placement. I think it's an amazing photo, one that I would consider buying if I were shopping for photographs.

[Ganesh H Shankar]

Rosl, love the tonal ranges in this image as well as composition. I think any attempt at making it more defined (increasing the sharpness, contrast or separating bird from the background by color variations) will take away a lot from the image. Personally I think blurring the image using gaussian blur a bit will add to the abstract feel.