After photographing the crane calling out into the setting sun (posted last week) I kept to it and glad I did as when the sun completely disappeared below the horizon the reds in the sky became so deep and rich. I composed this one tighter in-camera by walking closer as the lower body was lost in the all-black setting below anyhow. I had never been closer than about 500 yards of a Sandhill Crane before visiting Indian Lakes Estates...where they just walk up to you as geese or mallards would in a city park! I felt like a kid in a candy store!!
Me, I was a fat kid and always felt guilty in the candystore but that guilt mixed with candylust and alchemized into some kind of sweet and sinful combination? Actually I feel much the same way when I go out looking for birds, although I'm not as fat anymore. Moving on: this picture is beautiful. I love everything about it. It's right "up my alley" as the obnoxious saying goes, and thusly I have no criticisms to offer. A smart move you surely made when you continued shooting into the honeygold last light. Just wonderful, one of the most artful and evocative pictures I've seen in a very long while.
I think the reflected sky in the water is what makes this esp. good for me. It gives me a bit more sense of depth to image, which is sometimes lost with silhouettes.
Hi Dan, lovely mixture of colours in your sunset, and love how we can see the sky through the nostril in the bill. I do like the vertical comp, only way to have gone, but I would maybe take a bit off the bottom, where the front of the neck intersects the blacks of the grass.
The background colors here are terrific. I think the silhouette is enhanced also because we see the small opening through the beak. If the angle were a bit different and the beak was just solid black, I don't think it would have the same impact. No sure how much room you have to work with - I might not crop quite as tight, but that's the only thing I'd (slightly) change.
Sandhill Crane Silhouette, take 2.
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