Black-tailed Gull, Juvenile (Portrait)

[Rene' Villela]

Good evening everyone.
I took this shot just before sunset and thats why it has the yellow cast from the golden light. This is the way it came out from the camera including sharpening. It is a whole body shot but I was interested in showing only the head. I just have no idea what kind of cropping you are supposed to do in a case like this. You can call it "tonight's lesson"

Thank you for your advices!

D300 AF 180 f/2.8 D, AP f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO Auto 250

[Stu Bowie]

Comp wise, I would crop halfway between the base of the neck, and the edge of the frame. I would also take off quite a bit from the left too. Glad to see from the tip of the beak, to the back of the head, all sharp.

[Arthur Morris]

I might take just a very bit off of the bottom and lots off the left. The light is lovely. The big problem is that the bird's head is turned too much towards you. I would love to see the markings on the bill more clearly.

Lastly, though I am not familiar with this species, it is not in juvenal plumage. It very well may be, however, in one of the sub-adult plumages.

[Juan Aragonés]

I agree with Artie, this guy doesn´t seems to be a juv. The plumage seems to be that of a fully adult bird. About the composition I sugest a vertical crop and an slight tone down of the BG. Terrific light, BTW

[Rene' Villela]

Stuart... Thank you for your suggestion. Yeah! It is very sharp but as you can see I stopped down the lens all the way to f/11.

Arthur... you are completely right! Hmmm! I checked all the files and all of them he is parallel to the film plane. It would had been so easy just to move the tripod a bit, huh?

Juan... you must be right! i don't know much about them. Some one told me it was a juv because of the red marking on the beak. I just repeated that! Sorry! Thanks a lot!

I will try all your suggestions about the cropping!

[Arthur Morris]

Rene, What I wanted to see was a side view of the whole beak... Bird's are almost always moving their heads so all that you had to do was stay in the same spot and wait for the beak to be parallel to the back of the camera before pushing the button...