After a week of bad weather, it was beautiful this morning. The juvi avocets were feeding; as you see, this little one's neck and head feathers were very wet from constant poking into the muddy water. The image is primarily cropped and sharpened in PP -- color left as is. The white is close to being over, but I think not quite. And I resisted a temptation to catch-light the eye.
Hard to believe this homely, awkward looking creature will grow into such a beautiful and graceful bird!
Whites are looking quite hot to me.
Wish for a bit of light/life in the eye ... a head turn or having the body angled more toward you may have helped with that.
Ditto Mike (whites and eye). You didn't need to add a catchlight...you simply needed to enhance the current reflection found in the eye (via dodging). A lower angle would have helped the image alot, but I'm not sure it was possible at this location?
Daniel, thanks for your critique: " . . . you simply needed to enhance the current reflection found in the eye (via dodging)." I tried it and was amazed at the difference it made. How about the whites? Would you suggest burning as the best corrective remedy?
Hey Wendell, I'm glad that advice worked out for the eye!
As for the whites, I'd probably restart in your RAW converter (you do photograph in RAW?). There is not much info in the whites as posted so you'll need to experiment with the various ways to recover whites and see if there are any details hidden within. Most RAW converters have sliders for this you can play with (recovery, highlights, lights). Overdoing it can look un-natural though, so be careful.
Avocet chick
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