Grounded!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

This little skimmer chick was disciplined by its parents when he walked around too much. The parents pushed him back to a more protected area where the chick began digging and then sat down quietly until a parent returned with food. Photographed at Nickerson Beach on Sunday morning. I experimented with different crops and liked this one the best.



1D3, 500f4, 1.4x, 1/500s, f/7.1, ISO 400

[Doug Brown]

Nice soft light combined with an excellent exposure and sharpness Axel. I like the eye contact and the arch of grass over the top of the bird. The little curled blade of grass isn't ideal but it's still a nice image. The composition is quite nice too.

[Jim Fenton]

Axel....

I really like this one.

I like the direction of the light, the inclusion and sweep of the beach grasses, and the back ground plant material.

I have but one tiny nit.....the extreme upper right hand corner brighter OOF areas amongst the OOF foliage and shadows.

Excellent stuff.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

I really like the soft/warm light,pose and colors!

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

I like that you told us the story...

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hi Axel, very nice composition and colors. I think the image would benefit from a ccw rotation.

My thoughts too, and your correctly rotated version is right on...but the warmth of the colours are gone???

Axel, the image is too cute, and the explanation behind the behaviour is quite interesting and amusing :)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks for the comments and repost, much appreciated!

Peter, I debated rotating the image but decided against it. In your version the chick is leveled. I used the ruler tool and started on the left side where the blade of grass touches the sand and went to the right side and used the upper part of the sand in focus as reference.

[DustinFinn]

Nice light that morning.

I think with the lines of sand / shadows the original image and crop is best - it "feels" more straight vs. the repost where it makes you feel there is a slant, even tho its almost perfect on horizon.

Kinda like if you put bathroom tile on a wall, on a slant, and then make everything else dead level, the only things that look crooked are all the things you made dead level because the perception from the tiles and their lines.

Long way to go - but its what I was thinking...

[Arthur Morris]

Nice image, nice story. Even though Axel was working more than 90 degrees off light angle note that with the chick angled slightly toward him its face is evenly lit. Excellent in that regard. I like the ORIG post best.