No, Allan, I am not sick of seeing Loons. I don't think that is possible. I love seeing the process of these birds maturing through your pictures.
You have nice exposure here, and the birds are tack sharp. However, I do see a halo around momma's head and it appears as though you may have left evidence of work done above the juvie's beak. If you so choose, you may wish to remove the second catchlight from each eye, but that is a personal choice.
I am not exactly sure how I feel about the crop and I'll be keen to see what more seasonsed nature photographers have to say regarding that aspect of thise photo.
What a sweet capture, Allan. Keep the loons coming. Love the interaction and the head angles of both birds, not to mention the low capture, exposure and water color. Marina makes several good points about PP issues and the crop. It might be interesting to see it with either a bit more taken off the left, or alternatively showing the whole adult (which admittedly would take attention away from the two heads, the key point of the beautiful image).
The interaction captured here is priceless. Nice job on the exposure. The image appears a bit over-sharpened to me. And my preference would be to add a bit of room at the top and right. I'm ok with cutting off the tail of the adult, as it focuses attention on the interaction between the two birds.
Lovely loon image, Alan. Agree that there's a visible sharpening halo, to my taste could back off on the sharpening overall. Composition is a personal choice, and there are many alternatives here. I could see coming in a bit tighter by taking a BIT off the bottom and even the left. I do see some stray lines of some sort above the chick's beak.
Alan definitely keep the loons comingwell, I really don't see a halo on my computer, but neither here nor there. I would crop more off the adult to put more concentration on the heads of the adult and the chick, because I think that is the main focus of this picture
Many comments had to do with cropping. First of all this was a case of my kayak drifting too close. I had a fixed focal length and not enough time to take off the tc. (I get nervous trying to do that in a kayak anyway.) The focus point was in the middle of the frame. My crop was to move the heads off center.
I would like to see what others would do with this photo in terms of cropping so I am posting the non cropped image and hope others will crop and upload here.
Allan, I would consider a crop such as the one below, to emphasize the interaction of parent and offspring, as Myer suggested. I cropped on the left just to where the rising curve of the adult's body started; on the right to incorporate most of the the large water ripples; and on the bottom to remove most of the OOF water. This crop places both bird's heads roughly on the diagonal line from the ULC to the LRC.
John
P.S.: I would consider removing the second catchlight in the chick's eye.
I like all the crops, and I'm glad to see that Marina's PP problem appears to have been solved. Funny how the mind catches those little things. I viewed the photo before reading Marina's post. When I read Marina's post, I looked just above the juvie's bill and thought "Oh, she was talking about that 'spider's web.'" That had been my half-conscious perception of the mark when I'd first viewed the photo. The mark hadn't fully registered in my mind, but it did register somewhat. The point is that every little extraneous mark will be noticed, at least half-consciously.
Loon parent and child
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