Mothers Shelter

[john crookes]

Another from my outing with the plovers last monday

Nikon D3
600mm F4
1.7 EXT
ISO 280
F 9.5
1/1000th
Fill Flash with SB-900 and Better Beamer

[Randy Stout]

John:
Lovely colors, sharp, well exposed.

I would prefer not to have the grasses coming out of the mom's head, or the large piece of wood in front of her.
I am not quite sure what is going on in the background. On the far right, and far left there are unusual areas of brush strokes. I would be curious what kind of post work you did.

I might be tempted to crop it tighter all the way around, which would draw our focus more onto the birds, and eliminate some of the background issues.

I look forward to hearing what others think.

Thanks for sharing this touching moment.

Randy

[john crookes]

I believe what randy is seeing is some out of focus vegetation and assorted beach debris

[Juan Aragonés]

The light is a bit intense to my taste and I totally agree with Randy´s critics. The low shooting angle is great and the sharpness too. Very good eye contact by the way. :-)

[thijs broekkamp]

very nice and cute. The light is indeed a bit intense. Colours are pretty good though.

[Duane Noblick]

I like the setting and actually like the light in this one. The piece of wood in front of the adult seems to anchor the bird into what it's actually doing...sheltering the youngster either from the sun or wind...or both so it doesn't bother me one bit.

Can you tell I'm a big fan of photographing birds in their actual habitat and not just posing for the camera out in the open? ;)

[Randy Stout]

John:

Thanks for the info re: the background. It might have been interesting to try a few frames with a larger aperture to further isolate the birds from the background. The 'brush strokes" do look almost painterly, and it might be fun to play with that theme a bit too in some OOTB rendition.

Thanks again John.

Randy

[susanschermer]

I'm willing to bet that the brush strokes were just OOF dried grass in the BG. I don't mind the habitat material, but favor a much tighter crop. Cute.