This juvenile trumpeter swan was throwing his weight around, chasing the mallards. I thought the bill into the water and the flared wings added a bit of menace to his pose.
The funny thing was, two frames later, one of his sibs came over and started chasing him around. A real pecking order. (Maybe he was just grumpy about being picked on by his sibs and took it out on the mallards.)
My major question about this image is whether the out of focus mallards are a strong enough story component that they work here?
D700 600mm EFL, f/6.3 1/800s ISO 800 Manual Beamer with SB800 (Very dark day)
Love the sharp swan and the excellent use of flash but the clipping of the offending mallards is a cardinal sin. You needed a 500mm lens :)
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Randy, I find the mallards distracting. For me, this image is all about the swan & it's wonderful pose. If it were mine & if I had the software to do it, I would crop out the mallards & add canvas below the swan.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Randy, to get yet another perspective I'd prefer the first posting but with the mallards completely included. Pose, exposure and sharpness of the swan are great. JR
In a perfect world, all the mallards of the original posting would have not been clipped. You need the mallards to tell the story of course. It would have looked odd to have no mallards at all (to set the context of the swans behaviour.)