Early June Nor'easter here in New England coincided with the high tide and wiped out most plover and tern nests. Looks like only one plover family with 3 chicks survived that storm. Luckily the birds are resilient and are actively building nests.
This little plover was seen exploring the beach along with other 2 chicks on early cloudy morning. This shot was taken when the chicks were scurrying around near the ocean. I have a few closeups of these cute chicks but this is one of my favorite shots of chicks from the weekend.
Canon 1D4 | 500mm + 1.4x | 700mm | ISO 640 | f/8 | 1/800 sec
Processed using LR4 | CS 6 | Cropped 10% | Basic post processing
I normally spend my weekends at Sandy Beach in MA where terns and plovers nest. It is tough to get good clean background at that location. I decided to join Mike Milicia on his plover and tern workshop. He has found a nice location that is clean and is ideal for working with shore birds. Mike is really a great photographer, great teacher who is willing to share his secrets and a really nice person to shoot with. Apart from shooting at the beach, I really enjoyed his afternoon presentations. If you are confused about the proper use of flash, Mike can sort it out for you. His presentation on Flash was a good eye opener for me.
This is my first post on BPN. I am looking forward to your comments and suggestion. I am here to learn from you so please be frank.
Rajan, welcome to BPN!
it was very nice to finally meet you ... hope to see you again soon!
Nice clean beach , and lovely BG! The small in the frame works well here for me as it emphasizes how small these guys are.
You might experiment with moving the bird a bit closer to the classic rule of thirds position.
Looks a bit "crunchy" to me from oversharpening.
I love the placement of the subject in the frame here, very nice comp. Good clean beach providing a beautiful BG and FG. I agree with Mike about "crunchy" look. There is also a small black dot directly underneath the bird's belly that should disappear (choice of clone, patch, or spot removal tool should do the trick).
Welcome Rajan!!! So good to see you here. Become a member so we can see a thumbnail show up on the main forum page! Those always get more hits. And believe me, best 20 bucks you'll ever spend.
This is a wonderful portrait of the plover chicks we got to see (yes I took Milicia's workshop too--it was a fantastic learning and photographic experience), really does give a sense of their tininess in that landscape. The beach is of course beautiful and clean. Maybe try backing off sharpening just a tad, as others have said. But overall a great job. Looking forward to seeing more of your nice work!
Hi Rajan, I also just joined and posted my second shot (although I messed my first one up). I too like the small in frame. I love the DOF, otherwise agree with others.
Excellent image to start off, Rajan.
Love the small bird in a big world feel. Excellent low angle and a clean image with a nice comp.
Would run NR on bg and ease up on the sharpening on the bird.
Welcome to BPN; looking forward to more. Please keep them coming.
Thank you all for looking and providing valuable feedback. The image indeed is over sharpened - I am trying out a new workflow in LR4 and may have applied little too much sharpening during export.
Does the following, reworked photo look okay?
Piping plover chick
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, and lovely BG! The small in the frame works well here for me as it emphasizes how small these guys are.
