Puffin in the Rain

[Rich Steel]

Hi

While Austin was enjoying the sunshine on the other side of the island (see post below) I was having some fun playing with back-lit puffins in the rain. This photo was taken shortly before my feet suddenly appeared above my head as I took a nasty tumble on a guano covered rock. Following an x-ray yesterday the good news is there is no bone damage and the swollen soft tissue damage on my elbow is all being held nicely together now with Tubigrip dressing. The mkIV however fared less well and needs to go back to Canon due to damage sustained on the lens retaining pin.



Taken with IDmkIV and 500mm lens a F5.6 ISO 400 1/640s

Cheers

Rich

[Jeff Parker]

Well at least you got a nice image out of it :D

I love the falling rain, water drops on the back, eye contact and compostion. Good luck with the body damage to both you and your camera.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

This looks very cool, I like the rain, look-back pose, setting and BG. I might lighten the face and would raise the color temperature a bit. The whites look a bit blue on my monitor.

[John Chardine]

Rich- This is by far the best Atlantic Puffin image I have ever seen. Perfection is how I would describe it. The strong aspects of the image are the soft light, pose, head angle, background, perch, and rain drops, so that covers everything I think! I don't see a blue cast on my calibrated monitor- it looks just like the tens of thousands of puffins I have seen over the years. As I look at the image I feel slightly more room at the top may work but this is trivial.

[Jim Fenton]

This is a stunner.

Love the rain and the soft lighting.

Agree with Axel that there is an ever so slight blue tint in the whites.

Face color and exposure looks right on to me...I might sharpen and lighten the eye just a hair.

[John Chardine]

I took a look at the breast whites in LAB colour and the A channel reads about -2 and the B channel about -6, so the whites are a little off 0,0. Therefore the correction in A is a little towards magenta and away from green, and in B, towards yellow and away from blue. However, the shift is pretty minor.

[Oscar Vazquez-Ortiz]

Certainly a winner! Congrats!

[Harshad Barve]

excellent image Rich , Agreed on blue tint , hope you and your camera get well soon
TFS

[christopher galeski]

very nice Rich,nice detail,nice BG,like the rain drops and its perch.thanks.

[Austin Thomas]

Hi Rich,

Great image with loads of atmosphere and I am glad that you are not broken. Speak later about the "pin" issues.

Cheers

Austin

[arash_hazeghi]

looks very nice Rich, love the mood and details. Hope they will fix your gear soon!

[Raymond Barlow]

excellent shot, the rain adds to the mood, with the dark bg really setting the bird off nicely.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Rich, with that weather you can only have lovely soft light, and just love the pose, detail and colours. The falling rain adds to the image. On my monitor I can also see the slight blue cast. Doesnt distract from a fine image.

[Rich Steel]

Many thanks for the comments and suggestions. I do see a very slight blue to the whites now relooking at the image but that is easily cured. Plenty more photos to come from the Finland / Norway trip :)

Cheers

Rich

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Rich, the feel makes this one a winner. awesome setting. This one looks like a hard one to pull off and you have done it brilliantly. Looking forward to seeing more.

[paul leverington]

Rich-

I like the shot and agree with others about the whites. Or at least get the face to be as bright as the breast area--but maybe they don't look like that(never have seen one in person myself). It would have been nice if the rain was on some sort of angle rather than straight up and down. Not much anyone could do about that. Does look like you picked the right shutter speed for the speed of the rain drops so that they are not like spears, yet show some motion over frozen points in the sky that happens with a high shutter speed.. I'm not sure the horizontal format as presented is the best way to go with this one in my thinking because there is very little interest to the right that it should be included in quantity. Yes, I think it helps with balance and gets the subject off center, but I am thinking all the way a vertical might look better--if-- you have some canvas for the bottom and if that canvas looks good. Then the vertical traveling rain follows into the vertical theme of the format and augments the inherent tension you get from going vertical format. Worth a try and see at any rate I feel. Or maybe add to the bottom without cropping the right and come out with a square which would place the bird in the upper left area--might be worth looking at too.The only big thing on this one that hurts it is the lack of feet. That would have sent it over the top for me. At any rate I love shots in inclement weather and soft light--this one is perfect for that.

Paul

[John Chardine]

Rich-

snip
It would have been nice if the rain was on some sort of angle rather than straight up and down.
snip

Paul

That's a new one on me Paul. Never heard of the right and wrong sort of rain!