First year juvi reddish egret fishing in the rain

[Randy Stout]

This juvi reddish egret was imaged at Artie's SW Fl IPT recently. Rainy, dark day.
I was pleased to capture this guy, as I don't have any at this age. Liked the punk hairdo.

Lots of negative space, seemed to fit the rainy day mood.

D700 600mm f/5.6 1/250s ISO 500 Manual SB800 beamer - 2.7 EV Gitzo/Wimberely

Post: CS5 curves, selective sharpening, modest crop for comp

Comments and advice always appreciated. In particular, thoughts on the crop. I have tried several, with different amounts of space to left, but kept coming back to this one. I am influenced by being there, and this is the effect that day gave me.

Cheers

Randy

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the hairdo, HA and pose. Well done Randy!

[Alan Lillich]

The pearlescent colors on the body and neck are great. I think the crop is basically fine, although I would have left a little more on top to balance the bottom. I can see this working in a much looser crop too, with the bird maybe 1/3 of the frame height and down in the lower right corner.

[Ofer Levy]

Bird looks great and IQ is very good. Judging by the reflection it needs some CCW rotation and I think it works nicely as a tight vertical.
Cheers,
Ofer

[Gary Esman]

Sharp, like the raised foot, great detail and of course punk rock hair. Great job sir! I think I like the original crop due to the expression on the Egret, don't ask me why

Gary

[James Salywoda]

Awesome pose captured and I do like the vertical presentation on this excellent shot.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Randy, terrific shot. dont see many juvie shots of this species. very nice bird angle. Loved the high key and the walking pose...since its walking, I think the horizontal crop also works...but I'd prefer some more room at the top. Vertical is fine too.

Head looks very sharp. The rest of the body can use one more round IMO.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks everyone for the comments.

Alan - the original image was much looser, similar to what you suggested, will revisit it

Ofer- thanks for the repost. I like the result, but did like the negative space in the original too

KD - I originally had sharped the entire image for web presentation, but it actually started to look oversharpened for my taste, do didn't do any output sharpening on this version. Perhaps somewhere in between.

Cheers

Randy

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely photo. very artistic.

It is hard to say which would be preferred crop and probably personal preference.

You may want to consider a thin black border complete the framing.

Dave

[Randy Stout]

You may want to consider a thin black border complete the framing.

Dave

Dave - you are absolutely right. The background color on the forum is so close to the water color, that it blends in. I normally have a black bg on photoshop when I am editing, and it looks much better with that!

Cheers

Randy

[Nico Steenberg]

Randy, this is IMG ! I like the foot up pose and the space you gave it. IMG is well exposed and sharp. Well done on this

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Randy, I like this image a lot. The high-key effect, the mild reds and the fancy hairdo all work so well here. I really like the horizontal crop and would love to see a looser crop.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks again everyone for the input. I have loosened the crop, rotated .75 degree CCW and put on the border. I would have to add canvas to go any looser, but could be done.

I did want to mention that I did some eye doctor work on this image, as I had a nasty case of red eye.

Cheers

Randy