Yellow crowned Night Heron

[Steve Kaluski]

Taken on one of the Galápagos islands, where this little fellow followed me around as the animals have no fear of man. :)

Steve
MKIII 70-200f/2.8 1/640 f/5.6 ISO400

[Randy Stout]

Steve:

Interesting lighting, stark surroundings, excellent details in the feathers.

The angle of the bird in the frame does detract somewhat for me. If it was obvious that he was looking at something included in the frame, then the story telling of the image would make the birds angle work better for me.

I also might consider toning down the brightest areas of the perch.

Cheers

Randy

[Kim Rollins]

It is interesting that the young bird followed you.

I concur with Randy's assesment here on angle of bird, head, etc. and toning down the perch.

[Harshad Barve]

One very interesting image for sure , nice control on techs , HA is not ideal but do not bother me much as I think bird was more interested in his business
TFS

[Daniel Cadieux]

Randy's pretty much got it covered and I concure with him. Nice action however, and I like the orange eye and green algae against the otherwise grayish surroundings!

Is the face a little oversharpened?

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Randy

He kept moving about and I have a lot of static portraits of this guy, but thought the 'flexing' of the wings added a bit more interest to the image.

Daniel the greyish BG is larva rock with spray from the sea, so the highlights were always an issue sadly. Overshapened, perhaps a tad, but set against the BG it can emphasis things. However, it's always good to get a different perspective. :)

Steve

[Randy Stout]

Steve:

The wing flex absolutely does add to the image.

If you have any canvas to the right, it might help with the story telling to show more room for him to look into, implying that there is something of interest to the bird, even if the canvas doesn't include anything dramatic.

This is getting into the realm of visual psychology, always a slippery field, but sometimes fun to play with it.

Cheers

Randy