Guillemot

[Michael Hogan]

Wicklow Head on a windy sunny morning. the Guillemots were difficult to get - spent about 2 hours, 400 shots - 2 good enough. I like this one with the sea spray in the background and the wings slightly blurred given some indication of motion.

Canon 40D, EF500mm, 1/640 sec, f4.0,, ISO 200 -1/3 EV, Ap and Pattern metering.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the wide crop and details. The light looks quite harsh. Maybe you could apply curves and/or S/H to tone down the whites and lighten the shadows some more. Keep them coming!

[John Chardine]

I think this is outstanding Michael. I know how fast guillemots/murres fly and you have nailed this one. I also like the BG and the overall "feel" of the image which is hard to put into words.

[Dave Leroy]

A really nice looking photo Michael. It has captured the fast motion, still sharp and the environment. Another suggestion to tone down the whites a bit might be to add a bit of black to the whites in selective colours.
It has a real maritime feel to it. Very nice. Dave

[Daniel Cadieux]

I too like the "maritime" feel to this. The above advice would relly polish this image nicely. Additionally I feel that cropping about half the empty space above and about a third at left strenghtens the comp.

[Ed Cordes]

I really like the coming out of the fog presentation. The OOF wings do impart a feel of motion. The whites on the side of the bird look a bit hot.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

If it were mine I would not mind cropping from top (about half way to the white on RHS). The image has so much dynamics and I can also appreciate the speed at which this fellow flies thus your capture being very special. :) Thanks for sharing. The mood is awesome!

[Dave Barnes]

I realy like the idea here, but agree that the comp would be stronger with a bit taken off the top just to get the bird a bit higher in the comp. despite the dark BG the bird still stands out and has good definition. I like the eye contact. I agree the mood is well captured.

[Juan Aragonés]

Wow, excelent job Michel. I think that some croping on the top of the frame, in order to put the main subject on the left upper corner, would improved this indeed excelent composition. Love the combination of dark and light areas in the BG and the out of focus splash of the wave (?) in the BG. I agree with Axel about reworking the light/dark areas in the bird to extract more details. I love this image :-)