"Snake-y" Little Blue Heron

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Thought I'd post something different.

40d. 300 f/4 L USM. iso 640. f/4. 1/1250. noise-reduction in neatimage

I realize that the bill is not sharp. I was using f/4 to isolate the subject from the BG. It stuck its neck out for a brief moment only. I fortunately got it in the shaft of sunlight and with the right head-angle.

I find the little blue herons to be always more curious than the other birds at the rookery. Instead of flying away, they walk along the branches and "check you out". I liked this image because I think it captures a little bit of that personality. Hope you like it.

Comments and critiques welcome and appreciated.

[Randy Stout]

Kaustubh:

I do like it. It does tell the story, of curiosity, poking the head out of the shadows to take a peek.

You might be able to get a bit more out of the beak re: sharpness, but the eye is sharp, which of course is critical.
You might want to consider a little crop down from the top so that the neck/head isn't right on the horizontal midline. Cropping from above also strengthens the sense of him looking down at you.

Nice capture.

Thanks for sharing!

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

I applaud you for trying something different but there are lots of problems here:

1-the filtered light on the neck.
2-The subject is in less tha prime condition.
3-The dark angled VERT line through the center of the bill is a negative.
4-the entire bill is very bright and would benefit from increasing the density, i.e, a Linear Burn.

[Julie Kenward]

Yes, it does have its problems but some aren't so hard to solve.

I did the linear burn on the beak, masking off everything else and using 56% opacity on the blend mode layer.
I recropped so the head was more at an angle in the frame and cut off some of the top, bottom and left edges.
I did a slight color balance to take out the cyan cast from the beak area.
I cloned out the branch cutting through the bird's head and pulled the foliage from the top and bottom inward around that end of the frame to make it appear more natural.

It's not perfect but with some small tweaks I think you can get a distinctive memory from this image!

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Thanks everyone for the insightful comments.

Julie...I like your repost much better. thx

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Julie. It is much improved (but still does not work for me). Why: the bright filtered light and the fact that the bill and the feathers at the base of the bill are pretty much a mess.

[Julie Kenward]

I totally agree, Artie, but it does give him some options to improve the image if he wants it for his own personal use...that's all I was striving for.

[Arthur Morris]

Understood. Your repost was both very good and greatly appreciated.