His Orangeness

Thanks for your comments!

The bird is attractive. The color and the contrast are good. The Achilles heel is the background. The limbs are slightly defocused but they are still a big distraction. I think they seriously detract from what is otherwise a good photo.

 

I think it would be a ticklish thing to try and mask off the forefront and use a Guassian blur on the background because I suspect it would take a massive amount blur to do it. To make it look realistic you would have to be very particularly careful with the mask.

Great contrast in colors! the green vs. orange works well. I'd like to see more room in front of the bird if you have it?

BEAUTIFUL capture, David. Great title too :-)

David, I like it a lot. Excellent color. A totally OOF background would be nice but you've still got a winner. All the best.

I disagree with the above comments about the background. I've seen So many bird-on-solid color background shots. I think the background provides nice context and makes this a strong environmental portrait. I would consider toning down the leaves in the upper left, and perhaps also some of the branch highlights, but in general I think the background works nicely. The foreground, of course, is excellent.

I agree with Brian, I like being able to identify what is behind the bird. The focus is right on for me. I like the bird placement a lot too.

Lovely! Having the background in soft focus and the bird looking away give the image an enchanting, somewhat dreamy quality. The viewer gets a glimpse and realizes there is more to see. If birds stayed still, I agree that it might have been nice to add a little more on the right.