From a morning walk at a local park. I did quite a bit of PP on this to make the bird stand out, in the form of creating a separate layer of the bird sans background (quick select tool + quickmask w/ feathered edge), then gaussian blur of the background and reducing BG exposure by a stop. There is a some of evidence of this manipulation on the neck just by the bird's left wing, as well as on a few other margins. Overall, the masking worked fairly well.
Unique Camera Model : Nikon D300
DNG Lens Info : 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6
Exposure Program : Aperture-priority AE
ISO : 200
Date/Time Original : 2010:11:07 09:14:43
Shutter Speed Value : 1/320
Aperture Value : 5.6
Focal Length : 200.0 mm
Focal Length In 35mm Format : 300 mm
Difficult lighting for this subject, David. The harsh sidelight makes it impossible to retain detail in the highlights and shaded darks. I thick fill flash at capture would have been a good option to allow reducing exposure to keep detail in the highlights (would have kept the BG darker avoiding having to do this in PP) and throwing light into the dark areas. You have the subject nice and sharp in a typical pose and the feathers do give a nice texture to the image. Darkening down the brighter lines in the BG may be worthwhile.
Backlit Anhinga
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