Lovely early morning light Bill. Lovely landing pose and detail. When I first looked at it I thought that it needed the birds on land to be less oof, but I'm still debating that. TFS
I like the landing bird, its pose, framing, open bill (too bad we can't have the sound track! I bet it was loud.)
The out of focus birds help tell the story. Because the subject is quite softly lit (which is nice), I find the mass of white in the background competes for my attention a bit more than I would like. I might try a subtle change in the brightness of the birds on the back, lowering their brightness just a bit, to help make the subject more dominant. Or, of course, you could brighten the main bird a bit. Just some tinkering to consider.
Thanks, guys, for looking and commenting. Randy, I had lowered the brightness of the oof geese in my initial processing, but maybe not enough. I agree they are still competing. I've tinkered a little in the repost, lowering the brightness of the oof birds a notch or two, and raising the brightness of the subject just a tiny bit without going over 240. Maybe it helps?
I like both versions and cannot even see a difference. I like the image and the crop. I was there for 13 days and never goot a whiff of a southeast wind. But I had six inches of snow, a great foggy morning, and a zillion blastoffs.
with love, artie
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