Peering Through Feathers

[Dawn Currie]

I had to go to Gatorland on Friday to see how the nesting birds had weathered several days of severe storms and strong winds. I was grateful to see the chicks I had photographed last week still in their nests. Some nests were lost and others damaged, so there was a lot of activity rebuilding and reparing nests while simultaniously tending eggs. I took advantage of the unusually close distances the Rookery provides to do some extreme closeups of a few of the chicks. This is actually a tight pile of three chicks.

Technical data: Canon 450D, Canon 100-400mm IS USM lens at 285mm, ISO 200, f/8, 1/500 sec, post-processing level adjustment in LightRoom, cloned out Mom's feather that was across the left chick's face.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Something different but I like it very much. I like how eye on the left can be seen clearly amongst the chaotic feathers. I might try to lighten the image a bit. I really like how you think out of the box here, very well done!

[William Malacarne]

Dawn

Different and very well shown.

Bill

[Steven Grogger]

Great image. Especially like the detail of the pin feathers.

[pat lillich]

Dawn, this is gorgeous. Beautifully imagined and photographed. So glad these chicks made it -

[Rachel Hollander]

Dawn - well seen and captured.

TFS,
Rachel

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Dawn, very creative and different. Good for you for seeing this and trying something different. From a natural history perspective I wouldn't do much with the image other than maybe a bit more saturation to bring out the yellows. The OOTB part of me says you might lighten the dark areas in the UL and LR and maybe clone away the plumes covering the eyes.

I would love to see you do a version of this for Out Of The Box!

[Dawn Currie]

Hi Dawn, very creative and different. Good for you for seeing this and trying something different. From a natural history perspective I wouldn't do much with the image other than maybe a bit more saturation to bring out the yellows. The OOTB part of me says you might lighten the dark areas in the UL and LR and maybe clone away the plumes covering the eyes.

I would love to see you do a version of this for Out Of The Box!

Kerry, you gave me the idea to take this to a more high-key effect. It took some experimentation, but I'm really happy with the result. In order to achieve this, I made duplicate layer and masked out the faces with feather set at 25 px. First I desaturated the layer to remove all color. Then I went into levels and changed the RGB output to 70 which brightened shadows and midtones without losing too much feather detail. I then used my dodge tool at 8% for midtones to carefully control areas where I wanted darker tones lightened. The final adjustment was to increase vibrance and saturation on the faces to bring them out a bit. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Sid Garige]

Dawn,

This is an exceptional composition. Very nice symmetry and perfect placment of left birds eye. Looks like you got a great knack for composition. Love it.

-Sid

[Kerry Perkins]

Dawn, the added light really takes this over the top for me! Excellent re-post.

[Dawn Currie]

Dawn, the added light really takes this over the top for me! Excellent re-post.

Thanks for all the advice on this and previous photos; it really paid off. This photo just took third place in the professional/advanced group in our camera club's monthly contest.