I like the placement of the subject with the water rings expanding toward the edge of the picture. Good color on this bird and perhaps could have lightened the shadowed body a little.
Derek, Good shooting angle and excellent job saving highlights/colors with what looks like very hard light (note bill shadow on bird's back). Agree, bringing out shadow side would help. HA, while not perfect, gives this image tension. You can see the bird has seen you and is deciding whether to flee or not. BG nice as well. A personal thing; not sure I'm crazy about the position of the bird (straight on) with the crop. I'll ask the rest of BPN, could this be improved with a tighter crop?
Hi Derek, Although generally a head angle that is angle toward the viewer is preferred, in this case with the light coming from the bird's right, the head works in my opinion because if the head had been angled more towards us the visible eye would have been in the shadows (hows that for a run on sentence). I like the water with the blue highlighted ripples. If this image was mine I might try and tone down the blue ripples that intersect with the birds head. I like the composition as presented. Thanks for sharing.
Good comments and advice so far. Comp-wise I would take a bit more at bottom, my reason: the top of the reflected head is clipped and skimming the bottom edge. Cropping to between the two faint OOF lines above your signature would give the head a better controlled "cut" and a cleaner edge to the bottom.
Thanks everyone for the comments and advise. What I liked about this image was that it wasn't the same as every side view of a duck. The light was very harsh the day I took this. I did bring up the shadows alittle, but I'll give it another go. Plus I will take a little off the bottom. Thanks again!
Mallard
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote