Snowy Egret

[Daniel Belasco]

canon 20d 500mm f4+1.4@f5.6 1/2500 sec iso 800

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

That is some photograph, now please tell me how you accomplished this work of art.

[Michael Hogan]

Beautiful photograph - Love the way there is no real BG, just the reflection of the BG in the water. Probably could have done with slightly better lighting (nothing you could do about that) but there are not many photographs I have seen that are a good as this.

Thanks for sharing

Michael

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the idea, reflection and mood. I would put the bird further to the right, remove the blue cast on the plumage and desaturate a few points.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Ditto Axel, and I would also tone down the bright spot near the egret's head. I too love the mood!

[Glenda Simmons]

I'm a beginner with photoshop, but could this be the result of a motion blurr filter on the background? Whatever..it is very effective and made an unusual image,

[Daniel Belasco]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.
The reflection is of a Palm tree, the trunk is the brown on the right, and the yellow/green is the palm branch hanging down on the left.
Yes the entire bg is the reflection.
No PS tricks here--all right out of the camera. It's all in the lighting. I have found a 'studio' in the wild so to speak with excellent lighting.

[Daniel Belasco]

Thanks Axel.
I do have a problem with blue casts on white birds in the evening because I use awb, I assume. How would I remove the cast with cs2?
Actually your eye see a blueish tone to the light in the evening and your brain converts the color to what your actually seeing in the day, so in a way the cast doesn't bother me, but I'd like to try to remove it and see the effect. Do you agree on this statement?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks Axel.
I do have a problem with blue casts on white birds in the evening because I use awb, I assume. How would I remove the cast with cs2?
Actually your eye see a blueish tone to the light in the evening and your brain converts the color to what your actually seeing in the day, so in a way the cast doesn't bother me, but I'd like to try to remove it and see the effect. Do you agree on this statement?

Daniel, you could select the blueish area and go to saturation and only decrease saturation of the blue channel.

I think cameras sometimes get the color temperature wrong and the blue cast is stronger than I remember it.

[David Fletcher]

This as ever is lovely. what a beautiful palette of colors. Feel the focus is on the body though as the head appears soft to me and could crisp up with selective sharpening.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Beautiful. For egret images, I usually do the 'click' white balance in DPP by clicking on some part of the egret. It will be tricky here I think. clicking on the back might make the neck and face reddish. You can still try playing around. Or you can play with the color temperature WB setting during RAW conversion.

I also have a very hard time with egrets in shade of foliage.

KD