Cliftop Gannet

[Lance Peters]

D3
Sigmonster @800mm
F5.6
1/160th
+0.3EV
800 ISO
SB900 with better beamer
Manual flash @ -1 2/3
Tripod

Comments welcome :)

[Shem Compion]

Absolutely love this. Abstract portrait would be my interpretation. really striking and well thought out image.

[mrudul godbole]

Lovely photograph.Liked the composition. The colour effect in lower part of the image is very creative?Have you diffused it?

[Lance Peters]

No diffusing - this is pretty much straight from the camera - cropped and sharpened.
Bird was below me over the side of a cliff - OOF foreground area is nesting material.

[mrudul godbole]

Thanks for letting me know. The OOF foreground area is nicely blurred, it sure gives a different effect to the photograph.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Great work Lance, I really like the way you utilized the surroundings to create that OOF foreground. It is super mate. BTW I haven't ignored your Lake Eyre questions, just trying to find my way around some answers for you.

Best. :)

[Lance Peters]

Hey Akos - going to be hard to get to the lake- most operators are fully booked for quite a while and too busy at work to take enough time off to drive myself :)

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Ah OK. No rush then. I kind of may have a hard time doing a lot of things for a while, but that will depend on what happens in JAnuary and through Feb/Mar 2010.

Love these Gannets mate, you are really killing me with the quality of your images from there. :)

[DanWalters]

Very nice. Love the blue background and the color at the bottom of the image.

[Richard Lovison]

What an amazing and beautiful photograph. I love the background colors and the pose of the bird. If there was anything I could suggest it would be to selectively sharpen the tip of the beak as it looks a little soft on my monitor.

Every time I look at images in this group I am in awe. The vast majority are just incredible and I know how difficult it is to do through feeble attempts of my own.

[Juan Aragonés]

Wow, Lance this is really beautiful. Love the pose of the head and the outstanding out of focus areas. The more I use photoshop, the less I use the cloning stamp but in this kind I would be very tempted to remove (or to reduce its brightness) the catch light coming from the flash in the eye.
A real keeper :-)

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Love the wonderful soft colors in this capture and the composition is very striking. As mentioned great focus and superb eye contact. Many thanks for sharing Lance

[Ken Watkins]

This is even better than your last post, stunning!

[Brian Wong]

Hi Lance!

Beautiful colors with the pinks and the blues! I like the composition with the nice head angle and eye contact. Very pretty!

[Dave Barnes]

I like the pastal colour combination and the eye/face detail. Very interesting / eye cathing photo.
Great use of DOF.

[Lance Peters]

Richard - all it takes is practise,practise,practise and a open mind.

Juan - Thanks :) thought about that catchlight - dont know if it fits with my ethics - anyway I may have one with a reduced catchlight - have many variations with different HA and colours as the light changed :)

[Rob Drummond]

Nice one Lance, love the effect of the foreground and the upward tilt of the head. Apparently shearwaters bred there successfully this year for the first time in many many years.

cheers Rob

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Hey Lance!

Great looking bird nicely presented with this dreamy mood. Great image and love those light pastel colors.

[Cindy Mead]

I love the pastel colors and the etheral feeling of the gannet rising out of the 'mist'. A beautiful composition in every way.