Final Approach

[Jory Griesman]

Liked the position of this northern gannet, with landing gear down, in final approach to land. Was not close enough to terra firma to include grass/ground at the bottom of the image, however, only water, water everywhere. Slightly panoramic crop to include some water in the forward direction.

Cape St. Mary's, Newfoundland
D300, 300 mm f/2.8 VR, handheld
1/640 sec, f/9, ISO 200, manual exposure

[Matthew Studebaker]

Good approach pose with landing gear down and wings spread. The blacks and whites both look perfect, but I could see brightening up the midtones here, as the water looks fairly dark. Colors are good, I might consider punching the saturation up just a touch to get some more oranges and blues.

[denise ippolito]

Exposure looks good to me and I would agree w/ a boost in saturation. I might evict the spot behind the one foot if it were mine. I'm not sure but was there some clean up work in the BG by the back wing-it appears to have some BG smear on the wing. Beautiful image and great pose.

[Jory Griesman]

Thanks, Denise. You're right - a 2nd, distant gannet was superimposed over the edge of the far wing. I must not have magnified it enuf when evicting the bird to clean it up as well as I could have. I missed the spot behind the leg. Not another bird, could be a breaker in the water. BTW, tried increasing the sat, but ended up warming the bird up more than I'd like (browns on head looked too red, etc.).

[Graeme Sheppard]

Lovely pose of the bird, but I also feel that the background is a bit dull and my preference would be to brighten it up a bit.

[Michael Zajac]

Excellent pose and sharpness. Good eyes by Denise. The background does seem a bit dull but it really makes the subject pop so I might leave it.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Jory, Even if the wing were not smudged the work that you did to lose the other bird is too obvious. Learning to use Quick Masks (APTATS i) makes such tasks seamless snaps.... Ideal for these birds is clouds and the wind behind you so that they are landing right at you.

[Jory Griesman]

Thanks, Artie. BTW, your advice has not fallen on deaf ears/eyes - I've religiously used Quick Mask for some time now (it took me a few weeks to memorize the steps, so I no longer have to follow Robert's recipe), and have found it invaluable for evicting birds (and, occasionally, people) from images. It's the most useful thing I've picked up from APTATS. Not sure why I didn't use it for this image.

Unfortunately, I think if the wind were behind me, it would have blown the fog out to sea, and served as even a worse background!

[Hendri Venter]

Apart from the nits above I still like the image. Nice flight pose and well exposed.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks, Artie. BTW, your advice has not fallen on deaf ears/eyes - I've religiously used Quick Mask for some time now (it took me a few weeks to memorize the steps, so I no longer have to follow Robert's recipe), and have found it invaluable for evicting birds (and, occasionally, people) from images. It's the most useful thing I've picked up from APTATS. Not sure why I didn't use it for this image.

Go figure....