Silhouette on the Shade

[bulldurham34]

 

[John Hunt]

Very nice!

 

[Actinometro]

Beautiful.
I'd suggest you to take only the upper half of the image.

 

[tirediron]

Excellent!

 

[baturn]

Great capture!

 

[WesternGuy]

BD, very nice capture . I also agree that you could crop off some of the vegetation at the bottom - maybe about half of it.

WesternGuy

 

[knswee]

Very nice....

ken

 

[Derrel]

LOVE the backlighting and the silhouetted view of the head as shown on the right wing. This shot could possibly be finessed a number of ways, chief among them darkening and enriching the bright sky, but also exploring the exact shadow/highlight relationship on the wings; this kind of lighting is tricky. The bright sky is not the greatest thing...this would be a good image for a shadow/highlight merge of two RAW conversions.

Cropping wise...it's tricky, but I envision a rectangle, pulled lower, and to the right. You need the bird to be "higher up" in some ways, so cropping off the bottom foliage hurts that feeling...and eliminating some of the sky above enhances the feeling of the bird dropping downward, hence my suggestion of a crop, a vertical, than is pulled downwardly, and to the right, putting a bit less space behind the bird, and leaving a bit more space in front of the bird.

This is the kind of shot that a guy can spend a lot of effort on, evaluating exactly the best way to handle the final "look". This one is worth several different tries.

 

[bulldurham34]

Funny, Derrel as I have already began exploring different crops but hadn't thought of doing the two RAW conversion. I will look into that. Thanks!

 

[C. Brian Kerr]

BD, what a great capture. I love the "mystery " that it speaks. It tells a story to me with no words. I agree with Derrel as far as a vertical crop. I don't know what a 2 raw conversion is so I can't speak to that but I'm googling it now! Great job

 

[woolybear]

I absolutely love this image!
What is the colored dome between the wings?
For some reason my mind keeps convincing me it's the duck head and I'm not immediately drawn to the actual head shot "sillouette" within the wings..
Once I see that it really pops and it's easy to block out what doesn't seem like it belongs.

 

[bulldurham34]

It is the Egret's head and it is a bit incongruent to the scene but like another shot I posted, "A King Bird Scolds a Great Blue Heron While a Dragonfly Looks on," optically it doesn't seem possible but because I was shooting from a moving boat, the film plane (sensor) makes a seemingly impossible alignment, possible. This may also be the case with the silhouette.

 

[annamaria]

I do agree with Derrell on the crop, I'm not knowledgeable concerning the raw conversion. Otherwise I like the shot.