King Vulture portrait

[Greg Basco]

I shot this king vulture portrait last year while scouting a new location for the photo tour that Doug Brown and I co-lead annually. The light was a little harsh but I liked the directional quality with one side of the face in relative shadow, which looked to me a lot like the classic 2:1 studio portrait lighting ratio. I used my widest available aperture for an eye level view shooting through some grassy stuff in the foreground to add some depth to the image.



Tech: Canon 5D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens, 2x, f5.6, 1/2000, ISO 1000 (these guys really move around a lot so I wanted a fast shutter speed), manual, spot metering, no flash (shot from a blind through glass)

PP: A bit of recovery in Lightroom since I exposed to the right, full-frame image, a little selective noise reduction and sharpening

Thanks for your comments and suggestions!

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

What a unique shot, Greg. loved the FG blur and the low angle. Great colors, light and exposure. well composed as well. TFS.

[Stu Bowie]

Good eye contact Greg, and the detail and colours on the head really stand out. I like how you have shot this with the OOF FG. Well done.

[Robert vanMierop]

"...one side of the face in relative shadow." But not too much shadow. It lends nicely to the overall feel of the shot. (Huge fan of getting LOW for bird shots.)

[Morkel Erasmus]

I like this Greg - great POV, mood and exposure...I like the elusive nature of the bird portrayed here

[James Shadle]

Man O Man is that an intense bird.
I really like how the blurred foreground frames and isolates the birds head.
Well exposed and dead sharp.

For my taste, more room at the bottom and less at the top would be preferable.
James

[Andrew McLachlan]

Greg, I like this comp, the out of focus grasses in the foreground really makes this work for me. Nice work!

[Mikko Viljamaa]

Great picture with great sharpness. I personally would (maybe?) like to see slightly more room on the right.

Mikko

[Doug Brown]

The OOF foreground and BG green helps the bird stand out nicely in the frame. Great eye contact too.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Well seen and executed! Looks like you were stalking it and caught it by surprise (deer in the headlights expression on this fellow). Love the framing of the FG vegetation, and the comp works well - although I like James' suggestion too.

[Gary Hamilton]

I love images taken through OOF foreground vegetation and this one works very nicely. I think taking a little off the top and adding more space to the right would balance the image a little better. Overall, very well seen and taken.

[Greg Basco]

Hi to all and thanks very much for your comments. I'm not sure about the composition, but there are some interesting options there. James, this was as low as I could get in the blind so I couldn't have placed him higher in the frame without giving up the OOF foreground. And Gary, this is full-frame so not much I can do about the space to the right.

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[John Guastella]

This thread is an example of why I love this forum. I would not have even considered taking a shot of this bird buried in the vegetation, and if I did take the shot I probably would have deleted it immediately after chimping the image. But reading the comments from the more experienced members of the forum has caused me to rethink what an image like this can accomplish.

full-frame so not much I can do about the space to the right.

Greg, I think you could add canvas to the right and clone in BG and FG - both have so little detail that you could probably do this without it being obvious to the viewer.

John

[James Salywoda]

Awesome I like the framing from the foreground habitat and really well seen Greg excellent shot.

[Harshad Barve]

I am loving this
TFS

[Dan Brown]

SWEET, Sweet, sweet, Greg!

[Greg Basco]

Thanks so much, James, Harshad, and Dan. Glad you liked it. It's such a cool bird so I was happy to come away with something a bit different.

John, thanks for your interesting comment. I actually wouldn't have taken the picture any other way. I did a few standard shots but it looked like a vulture on a lawn; it wasn't until I scrunched myself as low as I could go in the blind that I started getting excited about the possibilities. In any case, I totally agree that it's great to see how so many talented photographers here on this forum can interpret birds in different ways.

BTW, I mentioned the full-frame thing because adding canvas and the like just isn't my style. So, I'll be stuck with my original comp for good or bad

Cheers,
Greg