birds and such Morning Swamp

Thanks for taking a look. Please give me suggestions or positives. I

thought of a couple different ways to crop this, but haven't yet. This

is the full image as recorded.

It is a pleasant scene and a good capture of the blue herron. The composition of your crop looks very centered. Bird is bulls eye in the middle. I would at least crop off some of the lower water. Instead of the rule of thirds you are currently at one half.

I totally agree with Kent.

I like the merit of the shot. I think a case of extreme cropping would make the photo/mathematicians quite happy.

 

I agree with the others, a few inches off the bottom would help us center in on the heron. Also, I find the large white spot in the trees distracting- my eye goes to this before it finds the bird. Don't know if you can, but maybe darken it down some? What I usually do in these kinds of situations is to take 2 images of the same shot, one exposed for the sky. Since it looks like you probably didn't have a tripod for this image (so would not have 2 absolutely identical images to lay on top of each other) you could then color sample the sky and add the color into your "correct" exposure. All in all this is a nice shot, tricky lighting and you managed to capture the heron's natural colors very well.

I liked it a lot! You are off to a great start. Keep up the excellent work. What state is this from?

Craig, I think you have a very nice shot here! The heron adds so much to it! I tend to agree with others that taking a bit off the lower portion of the photo would make it more appealing. Personally, I'd crop just above the largest area of brighter horizontal patch of light I see at the bottom of the photo. This still leaves the interesting reflections above that. I think you could also take an inch or more away from the left-hand side of the photo. This will place the heron a little bit right of center and also add to the composition. Regards to you.

Thanks for all of the ideas. I agree with the cropping of the lower portion. I plan to take off up to the lighter area if the water (as suggested). This photo was taken outside Orlando Florida on an Airboat in a swamp area, without a tripod. The boat was moving forward slowly.I am happy to get critiques, suggestions, etc.Thanks again!

 

Craig

You made a good catch here! Yeah, in a perfect world you'd move the GB heron off-center and work on the highlights; but nature rarely affords you the time or luxury. I have cropped this to remove the large hot-spot in top-center. I also quickly adjusted the color balance to remove the strong magenta cast; but could not tone the blues down to my satisfaction. Just a suggestion, and keep up the good work. Cheers! Chris