First flight

[Juan Aragonés]

A young white stork in the very first light of the morning. This bird has been growing in a nest at the top of a cliff in the coast. The fantastic light of the rising sun is painting her white and black feathers with warm hues.
Comments and critics are highly apreciated :)

Nikon D300 AFS Nikkor 500VR f5 1/1600s ISO640 manual exposure, handheld

[denise ippolito]

Beautiful light and sweet pose. I never saw a juvi in flight. I like your composition.:)

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

This is indeed very good Juan. Great light and the wavy BG. DOF is ample. TFS.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The water texture is amazing! I also like the wing positions, the dangling feet, and the exposure is spot on. Only issue (for me, anyways) is the head angled slightly away.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Loving everything about this one. Light is fantastic!!!!!

[MohsenVahedipour]

Hi
What a nice soft light & pose! Perfect exposure & BG. TFS

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Juan, Great to see you with time to be here :) Here is a personal question: in light of the recent conversation between Ofer Levy and me here would you prefer (as per Daniel's suggestion) that the bird's head had been angled slightly towards you rather than slightly away? (If the word here does not appear to be an active link simply click on the word or go down to the lower left hand corner of this page and select Blue from the Quick Style Chooser....

I do love the light, the BKGR, and the SH. Yes, you did your very best and to my view got just a bit unlucky....

[Arthur Morris]

Loving everything about this one. Light is fantastic!!!!!

Joe, do you love the head angled away?

[Nico Steenberg]

Great sweet light. Like the comp and bg. Subject is sharp and well exposed. A better head angle towarts you would take this a level up or two.

[Juan Aragonés]

Hi and thanks a lot for your comments :)
Arthur, the head angle works fine here in my opinion. Of course, everyone can have a personal point of view about that. Why in this case head angle works for me? Quite simple. The bird is in the middle of a landing action and she is looking directly to the target, in this case, a rock in which she perched 2-3 frames later. I have devoted so many years to scientific bird behavioural research that I cannot avoid to "read" animal behaviour in each image. The hanging legs and the position of the body is telling us "I am going to land" and, in such a situation like that, if the storke were looking to the camera, the result would be quite unnatural in my opinion.
Hope this help to understand my point of view ;)

PS. I forgot to mention that the flight trayectory of the bird was paralel to my position in the cliff

[Arthur Morris]

Juan, I have been studying birds for a few years also :) You state that the bird is flying (exactly) parallel to your position. I agree. Do you agree that the bird is going to land in a spot that is slightly to the right of the direction it is flying in?

You misunderstand what I am trying to say. I do not want the bird's head turned towards us at all. I would have preferred that the bird's head were exactly parallel to both your position and to its own body. As presented, the bird is looking slightly to its and our right. It is unfortunate that the bird's perch was slightly to the right of the direction of its flight. As I believe that I stated above, this is a fine image. But as Dan implied, it would have been a bit better had the bird's head not been angled ever-so-slightly away.