This image captured a Sanderling running from the incoming wave. The late afternoon light on the smooth, wet sand, provided a wonderful reflection. The quick movements of these birds make them captivating to watch and a challenge to photograph. Patience and perseverance paid off this afternoon.
This was taken on the shore of Juan Ponce de Leon Park on the Atlantic Coast of Florida at about 3:30 PM.
Technical date: Canon EOS 450D, 300mm, f/7.1, 1/2000 sec, ISO 400, hand-held
Post processing: Adobe PS CS3, cropped about 10% from original, Auto Contrast, shadow/highlights used to adjust highlights only, resize for posting
HI Dawn - big warm welcome to BPN , DOnt hesitate to jump right in and leave comments on other peoples images - no better or faster way to improve your own. All we ask is that you say what it is you like or don't like about the image. This is a great place to learn!
I will reserve my comments for now - will let some of our members offer up some advice and came back later :)
Hi Dawn, welcome to BPN. I can only echo Lance; this is a great place for learning. Very nice first image. For me, I like the pose with raised foot, reflection and background surf. You also got a nice head angle here. Ideal would have been if the sun was behind you to avoid the shadow as a also lower shooting angle. As for post processing, I feel you could have cropped tighter reducing the surf on top and left. There is a bit color noise, which can easily be remove as also the slight halo around the sanderling. Keep posting.
Hi Dawn...I agree with the other comments so far but wanted to show you a different crop to consider. If you put a ROT's grid over your image you'll see that the bird is almost dead center horizontally and images tend to be stronger compositionally if the bird's head/eye (or another strategic part) is in one of the ROT's positions. I moved him higher and to the right to do that using a 10" x 7" crop.
Nice pose. I like Julie's crop. I agree with Indranil's comments about lower perspective and angle of the sun, which would give you more details on the bird and eliminate some of the shadows.
High Stepping Reflection
