This is another photo of the mandarin I posted in Eager to Learn yesterday. I realize the head angle is slightly away from me but it doing so gives more color to the neck feathers.
Tom, the vertical does work, but I can see this more in the traditional landscape comp. Lovely calm water to show off the reflection, and I would maybe remove the lower catchlight.
Tom - I really like the contrasting water before and behind the bird. It keeps me looking and trying to figure it out. I assume the pattern behind the bird is just the ripples from the bird. I also wonder about a landscape crop but certainly don't mind the vertical.
Head angle looks fine to me as it feels like the bird is still looking at your direction. I feel however that vertical is not the best way to present this image. I have added canvas to the sides and cropped from the top and bottom - I will go this way only if you have at least most of the room on the sides.
Cheers,
Ofer
Ofer, thanks for the excellent repost. I would not have normally cropped it in landscape and at first I didn't like it as much, but the more I looked at it, it eventually became my preferred orientation. Here is a repost of the original image with a landscape crop and I reduced the catchlight per Stuart's suggestion. I didn't remove it, just made the reflection more like the actual catchlight. I also removed a white spot in the corner of his eye in the reflection.
The repost(s) are better comp-wise but I think it could use more room top, below and right since the bill is pointing that way (in essence, placing the bird farther left). I also think a HA parallel to the sensor plane would have been better and you still would not have lost too much colour. I still like it though. Excellent reflection, and the wake is superb - and I love the smooth water in front combined with rippled water behind...cool!
Daniel, you may be right about the HA. I also thought about cropping as you suggested, but when I did it, I lost the "straight at you", centered feel that the OP had. It made the wake uneven and although we don't usually like centered subjects, for this one, I kinda do. Just for kicks I have included a repost with a crop close to what you may be suggesting and you can see what you prefer.
I think that the extra room to the right gives a stronger impression that the bird is looking to the right and away from the camera. I do like the extra room on the top (which is also present in my repost.) I would leave only one catchlight.