Gooney!!

[Rick A. Brown]

Some clients love this other folks hate this. Wanted to get opinions here. Too old for me to have any of the exposure data.

It's a Laysan Albatross landing at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.

[Judd Patterson]

Rick, I love all the action in the sky! It's a beautiful image although I'd really love it if the closest bird was clearly giving us eye contact. Also I would work on the colors in this image some so that the sky had less red. As presented it tends a bit toward purple and would look better with a more natural blue. For me this image begs the question how did you get out to Midway? That's a dream for me and I'm sure that it is not easy to do...way out there!! :)

[Alfred Forns]

I'm with Judd How did you get on the Atoll !!! No shortage of birds there

I do like the composition a lot Effective and different Agree with the suggestions

[Rick A. Brown]

The color issues go to show that I have more trouble post-procesing scanned film than digital originals.

Anyhow, getting to the Atoll; I went back in April 2000, with a Joseph Van Os trip. We flew into Honolulu and then caught a chartered Aloha airlines flight to Midway. A company called Midway Phoenix ran the concessions there. After 9/11 they went broke. Now the government is trying to get someone else to take the contract because 1) 777 filghts over the Pacific require an emergency stop and it's too expensive to keep the field open without tourists 2) they would like to use a lot of volunteers etc. to control invasive plants, which tend to prevent the Black-footed Albatross from nesting, and it's real hard for them to get there now. I've heard rumors that visitor services might start again this year.