swan

[gourmet]

eos 40d 400mm

 

[LarissaPhotography]

Nice shot. What's the deal with all the black? Was it dark outside?

 

[Overread39 2]

beauty of a lowkey shot there
And great work exposing for such a white animal - whites can be very hard to expose correctly for
Larissa - the effect is called lowkey - if you have an exif reader or save the image to your computer and then review the properies, you can see that the settings are:
f9
1/1250sec shutter speed
ISO 200
and that flash was used

Essentially the settings would give an underexposed shot without the flash - probably black all over or mostly, when the flash is used the light from it hits the swan and is reflected back enough so that the settings used will give a good exposure. However the background areas to the swan are (most likley) too far back for the flash light to hit them and return in enough quantity to make a good exposure - thus you get black background (though sometimes on has to edit a bit to clean up the background - but the overall effect is one of a black background)
Water also seems to do this for closer areas as well.

 

[Stock Photos]

Fantastic shot I love the ruffled feather, its so natural looking and sharp!

 

[gourmet]

@overread
Thanks for the comment and explanation.but I didn't use a flash.
I posted a other one from the same swan . I have made the photo only darker with picassa .