Mallard Drake Portrait

[Stephen Stephen]

Here's an image from last winter. The drake and several other mallards were resting or sleeping on the snow beside a river. I know that it's tight in the frame and I wish that I could have had a clean background but ducks were all around this fellow. I like this image anyway.

(It was a very cold day laying on that snow!)

Rebel XT, Sigma 50-500mm @417mm, ISO 200, 1/800 sec. F6.3

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice closeup. I like the details and mood. Maybe you would have had no other bird in the frame by moving to your right. I might increase the contrast a few points.

[Jim Johnson]

Great detail in the head and the eye. Have you tried to crop out the other bird, and clone out whats left of the other bird. It would be a little tighter but a great portrait.

Jim

[Jim Poor]

Since this is a fairly high key-ish image with a smooth BG, cloning out the extra bird in the BG should be a snap.

[Arthur Morris]

If you moved to the right you would have opened up some space between the two birds and more importantly been more square to the bird's head.

Exposure perfect. Later and love, artie

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Very lovely portrait Stephen and the detail and exposure are excellent as well as wonderful eye contact. Nits mentioned ! thanks for sharing.

[Arthur Morris]

Very lovely portrait Stephen and the detail and exposure are excellent as well as wonderful eye contact. Nits mentioned ! thanks for sharing.

Hi Judy, I disagree with the "wonderful eye contact" comment. With the head turned away, the eye looks sort of glazed (ultra-reflective) to me...

later and love, artie

[Wayne Wood]

I believe I was with Stephen when this image was created and as he stated there were ducks all around , hundreds in fact by moving in any direction he would have invited another into the bg , very well done portrait given what you had to work with Stephen ,,, also I agree a tad more contrast would help

[Stephen Stephen]

My thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions. Here's a re-edited version with the OOF duck removed and the contrast increased a little (not enough?)

Hi Judy, I disagree with the "wonderful eye contact" comment. With the head turned away, the eye looks sort of glazed (ultra-reflective) to me...

later and love, artie

Artie with respect to the glazed eye there was high continuous cloud cover that day and the sun was just starting to burn though the cloud layer. I'm pretty sure that's why the catchlight in the eye was "glazed". Other than waiting for full sunlight can you do anything when the eye looks like this?

Thanks again to you all

[Arthur Morris]

My thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions. Here's a re-edited version with the OOF duck removed and the contrast increased a little (not enough?) Artie with respect to the glazed eye there was high continuous cloud cover that day and the sun was just starting to burn though the cloud layer. I'm pretty sure that's why the catchlight in the eye was "glazed". Other than waiting for full sunlight can you do anything when the eye looks like this? Thanks again to you all

Hi Stephen, I do like the repost better but would still have liked for you to be farther right to better parallel the head. Do you see how the base of the bill and the lower part of the face are hidden by the breast? Would the eye have looked "better" if you had moved or the bird had turned? Hard to say but possibly yes. An some instances I will work on an eye like this by selecting it with a QM and then darkening it with a Hue-Sat ADJ (just on the layer): -90 or so on the Sat and -90 or so on the Lightness slide. Then you back off on the opacity slider to lighten the eye somewhat. If you leave the opacity at 100%, esp. with an image like this, you would have the cookie cutter eye with an unnaturally black eye so you would likely have to back of quite a bit to about 20 or 30% to keep it from looking phony.

It would have been much easier to move to the right or try to squeak the bird to look more towards you :)

Folks who have bothered to read this will have an idea of why I am such a stickler for head angle (and light angle too). I swear, there are times when I have had a great bird teed up in gorgeous light with a killer BKGR for five minutes but looking away and never made a single image despite my best spishes and duck quacks...

later and love, artie

[Stephen Stephen]

Artie thanks again for all the advice. I'll keep trying with head angles and I'll practice some post processing techniques as suggested.