Seemed as if this pair was checking out this spot for a nest site. image from early April on a morning when the fog rolled in off the ocean , thus the flat light.
800ISO F5.6 at 1/3200th
Cropped for comp and added a little canvas on right side.
Joe -
Nicely done.To be perfect, some might want identical head angles and less dead grass in LRC
Unless it was intentional, if you check the histogram, there's a noticeable color cast
Above is a repost correcting the color cast
Joe, my favourate marine bird, and to have two, what a bonus. The light looks fine, and you have exposed the OC's very well. For a beach, Im just not too keen on the grasses.
Lots of options here. I agree about the color cast. The fog itself should not have given quite the yellow cast. Do you remember what time of day it was taken.
I think Peter's version is more color neutral. I couldn't resist taking a look at it myself, and used the gray dropper in curves on the sand, then backed off the opacity to 75%. Only you can say for sure, but I thought the birds looked pretty accurate with this setting, and the sky was a bit more interesting.
Thanks for the suggestions. The time was early am and I guess the cast was a combination of early light and the fog. I left it that way as it was closer to how I saw it. The BG was sand behind the birds and not the sky. I guess it comes down to a matter of taste. Both re-works look good but I like the original the best.:)
Thanks for the extra info. You got to go with what you remember/like, although there certainly is no reason you can't have several versions of one image!