Very nice looking bird!
I believe that a little bit of noise reduction on the BG and more sharpness on the face would improve this image. Great job anyways!
To me this is just a painting, I will not spend not one minute trying to find something to critique. Sometimes it all comes dowin to the gut feeling to me. Congratulations!!
To me one thing is a painting and another is a picture.
I agree with Ramón about the 'gut feeling' but in this case I prefer to think that this one is a picture.
Well I think sometimes you can have the best of both worlds! I agree with Juan, that some additional sharpening and NR will help this image, but won't take away from the painting-like effect. Thanks for posting!
Juan, My comment didn't had anything to do with yours, I just meant that threre are some pictures that look so well composed and with such nice colors and all, that I rather enjoy them than critique any apsect of them, I always put first the creatuve and subjective expression rather than the technicalities, but as I said, it just a my personal way, having this opinion nothing to do with yuor commet with wich I actually agree :)
noise reduction on this background as serene and painterly as what Jamaica Bay offers us on a beautiful Sunday summer morning? Never.
I was fortunate to have this image shared with me prior and I saw it on my iPhone screen which is superb and I almost dropped the phone while in the car.
I am not trying to defend this image, but the image is as good as it gets at Jamaica Bay. Well done James.
The background and the water (as well as the bird) are just beautiful. I hope I can get such a beautiful image at Jamaica Bay some day in the very near future. This was taken at the East Pond, correct? That being said, I think it might need a very slight CW rotation.
Great angle, light, setting and BG. I agree on a tad CW rotation and would try to get more details in the bottom of the stump and remove the specular highlights in that area, too. Noise has been mentioned. Thanks for sharing!
Personally, I find all of this totally OOF water less than realistic...and every time I present an image either to a prospective print buyer or at times an editor...thay almost invariably ask what I did to the water. Last year I had a judge at a nature art show quietly tell me on a piece I submitted which had completely OOF water such as this, that nobody sees wildlife from this perspective in real life and therefore it appears unnatural.
Is this simply the current "fad"?
Is reality better or worse?
Personally, I'd like the image a lot more if the water actually looked like water...not a criticism, simply my personal feelings.
Surely it depends on whether you are presenting a 'nature 'shot or a more artistic impression. This image has a wonderful dreamlike quality as shown, which evokes a certain response. This response will always vary from person to person and my limited experience of judges in the UK has so far been that they are perhaps not so thrilled by the more artistic images. Yet how will we grow creatively if we are not shown a perspective that we may not have considered - and that includes competition judges...
Jamaica Bay Water Colors
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