Gt. Blue Heron white morph

[Richard Stern]

This was at a resort on my Cuba trip recently. More of a mood image than a bird portrait, but I hope people like it. I tried both lightening and darkening the heron, and tried a vertical crop, but in the end decided that the original (with a bit of sharpening and noise reduction), as posted here, was what pleased me most.

D300, Nikon 80-400, hand-held
ISO800, 1/1000 at f5.6, spot-metered on the bird.

Richard

[Daniel Cadieux]

More of a mood image than a bird portrait...

And great mood indeed. For compositional purposes I would probably crop abit from right - enough to rid the lower leaves running down the edge. I would also clean up the imperfection on the face reflection, and eliminate the small dark spots in the water. All-in-all very nice, and I like how the subject is framed above by the reflected vegetation.

[Arthur Morris]

You chose your perspective well. I love the colors of the water, but the bird could go lighter for me as there is no detail in the face. Perhaps a vertical ORIG capture would have worked well.

[David Thomasson]

Beautiful composition and light. My first thought was like Arthur's, that the bird needed brightening. But I tried it in Photoshop and couldn't get satisfactory results consistent with the ambient light. You might consider going the other way: darkening the bird so the image is more about form, and there's less temptation for viewers to peep for details in the bird.

[Stu Bowie]

Amazing colours, and well done for including a full reflection. I would maybe lighten the bird, and comp wise, move him back to the right a bit. Still, a great image Richard.