Here's another rendition of the Sambro, Nova Scotia Ivory Gull, this time with just natural light of the setting sun. I decided to keep the large, red, OOF object because I like the colour interest it provides.
I cropped a little off the top, lightened the eye to bring out more detail, and ran some NR on BG.
I hope you like it. Comments welcome of course!
Canon EOS 50D, 70-200 mm @ 200 mm
capture date: Monday, 26 January, 2009 4:46 PM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 400
shutter speed: 1/1000
aperture: f5.6
exposure bias: +0.3 (because of dark BG)
metering: Pattern
flash: OFF
Excellent exposure John and good detail in the whites. The wonderful eye contact and dark BG really makes this image for me. At first I was tempted to remove the golden light to the right but the more I looked at this image the more I agreed with your choice. It has more drama with the wonderful addition of the color. Fine work.
Lovely light and details, John. I agree that the OOF area on the right adds something but I would darken it a little. A tiny crop from above may be an option.
I hate to be a stick in the mud but I'd rather have a darker negative space than the OOF bright (bright relative to the rest of the background) area as my eye simply is drawn to that first and it leaves the image kinda unbalanced to me.
Other than that, sweet light and a beautiful subject.
Loverly bird and light. What WAS the o-o-f object? Great job on the eye.
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It kind-of looks like an OOF bird in the BG and I could say it was that but I won't. It was one of those large metal things that you tie ships up to, painted red. The smaller ones are called cleats but the larger ones, I'm not sure.
Many thanks for all the encouraging comments. I will always remember the encounter with this bird.
I have one more to post, this time whole bird rather than head portrait.
1: a post of metal or wood on a wharf around which to fasten mooring lines2:bitt 13chiefly British: any of a series of short posts set at intervals to delimit an area (as a traffic island) or to exclude vehicles
(The above from Mirriam-Webster On-line Dictionary.)
That led me to bitt which was somewhere in the back of my mind:
Main Entry:
1bitt
Pronunciation:
\ˈbit\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
probably from Middle French bitte, ultimately from Old Norse biti beam
Date:
1593
1 : a post or pair of posts fixed on the deck of a ship for securing lines 2 :bollard 1
I shan't forget either one!
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Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
OK let's go on a tangent! This is the offending item from snaps taken by my friend at the time. The "bollard" has arms like the smaller one in the second image but they are hard to see because they are facing away and towards the camera.
Ivory Gull no. 2
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