This particular bald eagle was diving into its pond to fetch fish. It was bizarre and fascinating to witness this almost dance and routine it would repeat over and over for at least one hour. I took many shots in burst mode and found these to be the most illuminating into what I witnessed. I feel the beauty of the triptych is that it can tell a story. And I wanted to capture and express this "dance" that this eagle took part in.
Generally same steps taken for each of the three different photos. It was like this:
Crop
Clone Minor bits
Levels
Curves
Contrast
Minor D/B
Color Balance
Sel Color Balance
Sat
NI
Resize
USM
USM
And then I took each of my three edited photos and decided on a top/bottom approach to mix it up. Plus I feel with giant birds, the panorama does justice to their breadth.
I cropped each one to roughly the same size and cut and paste onto a black background for the border. Thanks and I hope you enjoy.
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so amazing!!
im jealous! ive been wanting to photograph the eagles (and their nest of babies) near my house but im too scared to take my camera out in my kayak
this is such an amazing shot. i have this lens for canon, and have never gotten such clear results. very nice. the lighting loved you this day, or was it the other way around? this is simply breathtaking. should have been a blue ;) very well deserved.
This is incredible -- the middle photo, which I see you put in your portfolio, particularly. Incredible! Just curious what your focal length was... How close were you?
WOW! is about all i can say about this one. I may be a little bias because i am partial to the nature photography but in my opinion yours is the best of the 3. i think the thing i like the best about this photo in particular is how you were able to freeze the water around the bird while its head is covered and still have the clarity.
The detail and moment you've captured here is simply put, breathtaking. What an amazing sense you have for detail, lighting and composition. Congrats on your ribbon!
I love it. I could sit and look at nature shots like these all day ! Congrats on your ribbon well deserved, IMO this could also warrant the blue !
-Lisa
This is absolutely fantastic; this deserves so much more and if it were up to me this photo would have ribboned blue! That it didn't upsets me, just shows me that this site prefers pictures of beautiful, perfect women than a beautiful and realistic photo such as this! Never the less, I congratulate you! Brilliant and stunning, I particularly enjoy the water on the birds accentuated colourful feathers, creates such a wonderful image, all three of them!
Hope to see more images like these coming from you, I admire your abilities and your camera!
Congratulations on an absolutely fantastic composition. The image quality is spectacular - made all the more fascinating when one considers it was done with a 'consumer' lens. How did you get your images so sharp?
Congrats on the yellow ribbon, hope you do´t take this the wrong way but I am glad you didn´t do better :D Excellent captures, all of them, I especially like the middle one and I would have given this a good rating if I had voted.
Congrats on the ribbon. Interesting that you took the same approach as me to making the triptych. I actually feel the same way about yours that I do about mine, that I would prefer each individual photo by itself rather than the way presented for the challenge. I would like to see them if you have them available.
8 - All very good shots, nice simple colors. Criticism; the obvious is losing so much detail with the size restrictions, but cannot be helped and I think you have still managed to show good detail with each in this size. The first shot I am not sure is a good choice (your call obviously) as the 'starter', mainly for the eyelid closed, looks a little 'odd', great shot, but that's the first thing I saw was the 'clouded eye'. So even at 'wall-size' I think this triptych, which would look impressive big, loses some impact with that first shot, in my opinion. Dependent how many other shots you got; a. perhaps a different choice for 1st, or just a different arrangement and b. hope you got another one, especially with the water, saved for the Free Study. The detail in the water in 1 & 3 is very good. Up to 7 from 6, these are great shots in a seemingly natural environment, but that eyelid still 'irks' me slightly in the first one. Up to 8, really like this & the eye is adding an 'unusual' element to this making it more unique.
wow! .. that must be some lens!!! great candids of this guy. I remember before someone had a bald e' and it was at a fair or something - that won a blue ... I think this is stronger than that. 9
i'm guessing the 640 size restriction prompted the thin crops, but i would have loved to see more of each frame, even if they had been smaller as a result. however, i do think this is an amazing set of photos. congratulations and i hope you do well...
Gorgeous shots. As far as the triptych goes, I'd like to see a bit more obvious division between the three photos. There's just so much detail that it's difficult to immediately discern the end of one scene and the start of the next. Perhaps a thin gray border around the shots themselves. With more space (I realize you are constricted by the dimensions here) you could add a bit more black as well. Stunning detail!
3 aMAZING, powerful shots! The eagles are so sharp. And the more I stare at this one, the more it draws me in and I like it more. Fantastic photo! And any one of would be sellable as a matted and framed print too.
This might have benefitted from a little 1 pixel white border around each image before adding the black so they stood out more. Awesome shots, though. Good Luck.
Great action shots. I would have spent hours debating the sequence. Seems top picture should be followed by the bottom one. Yet, the center image is the right center image.
I like this concept a lot. You've captured the birds beautifully! Great detail and nice close-ups. I find the background in each shot a bit distracting, however. I know it wouldn't be legal for the challenge, but afterwards, you might want to consider placing each bird on a black or very dark background, so that they just pop out. Although, I admit, I'm not sure how well this would work for the water shots. Overall, nice job!
These are very nice images, all three of them, but I do wish I understood the water better. I wonder if he was fishing or just washing up. I'll bet the center image is amazing on it's own with the full wing spread.
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