GBH cleared for takeoff!

[robertwsimpson]

C&C welcome

 

[LaFoto]

Man, you do have a BLAST in that bird reserve. I can tell! Wonderful photos! Again and again!

 

[robertwsimpson]

Last weekend, the animals were putting on an amazing display... usually in the summer, you struggle to find anything of interest. In spring, it takes 2 hours to snap about 350 photos! it was definitely fun!

 

[Antarctican]

^^^ And what awesome results you got too! I've been following your series of bird posts and enjoying them all immensely. This one is no exception...love the posture of the bird, the flying droplets of water, and that beautiful background (complete with little flowers) to complement the image even more

 

[cnutco]

As always... great photos!

 

[robertwsimpson]

Thanks guys!

 

[Overread]

Soo where is this place and how much do you pay the herons to pose?

Second shot is the strongest to my eye - the first you have just clipped the wings at the tips. I would also play around with some selective contrast changes - just to shife the flower down a tad and bring the bird up a tad -at the moment I find that the flowers are holding too much of my attention.

 

[robertwsimpson]

Thanks, I am still learning the post processing part of photography. I was trying to figure out how to get the bird to stand out more... I'm thinking an equally good way would be with a wider aperture...

 

[Overread]

Wider apertures do help, but a lower shooting angle would be about all you could use in this case- a lower angle would mean that the background is more removed from the bird and for a larger subject like a heron helps to blurr hte background. Remember also that even if you can shoot wider you don't always want to as you can lose depth on the bird itself.

To bring attention remember that our eyes tend to move toward brighter spots of a shot as well as more contrasty areas (we also tend to view contrasty areas as being sharper). Which is why sometimes you see overcontrasty and over bright images being popular because its going to that extreme of attention grabbing - you obviously don't have to go that far and sometimes only little lifts and adjustments are needed to subtly shift the focus of the image.

 

[pbelarge]

Robert
You may also try to crop a little off the bottom of the shot. The color of the flowers definitely distract from the bird. Cropping would take some of the green away as well.

Also, I would try the second shot in B&W.

 

[D-B-J]

beautiful