This was taken on New Years Day in Daytona Beach Florida. I was taking a walk on the beach and came across a pelican sitting pretty at the edge of the water.
As I approached I took photos, expecting her to fly away at any moment. She did eventually, but not until I was pretty close. I got this shot and a few others of her escape.
This is processed with extreme levels to produce the high key effect, sharpened, reduced brightness, increased contrast, smoothed with Redfield Perfectum filter. Added a bit of cyan and yellow to make the colors more palatable.
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Place: 229 out of 428 Avg (all users): 5.5200 Avg (commenters): 6.3333 Avg (participants): 5.5192 Avg (non-participants): 5.5217 Views since voting: 911 Views during voting: 253 Votes: 150 Comments: 21 Favorites: 0
i'm not sure what i can add. i gave it a 7 and i love it, too. it is different, though, which is one of the reasons i liked it, but maybe not an overall popular processing style. the reflections and the shadow make it really great. i wonder how it would look, if the water were more it's regular color like the pelican is
Excellent timing and worth the stalking of the poor thing. :-) I love the trio of the bird, the reflection, and the shadow, all showing the bird's form in different ways.
First off, an astonishing capture of pose and position on shallows, including both shadow and reflection. Processing brings this totally to the fore. But it also puts you in a tricky position of having to coordinate these 3 features, which compete for my attention and focus. I don't know if different framing or colour adjustment (black and white) would help. And oh, those wingtips!
I think the extreme brightness in the upper half of the frame is what held this back a little. I woudl have also cropped it a bit differently, placing the bird a bit more to the right. I do like the reflection of the bird in the wet sand and darkening the image would also bring that out a little more.
Well you did not go to extremes , here is the extreme processing.
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I liked your version though since that is simple and good. But this is its problem simple and good do not sell well at DPC. Here perfect and extraordinary with lots of WOW works well.
Like the high key processing and the shadow, and particularly like the wing position and the reflection. It's really cool that the wing, shadow and reflection all converge at the wingtips. Really extraordinarily good angle and timing on your part. I might dodge the face a bit to get more detail there and maybe crop a little tighter on the right and bottom so he's not so centered, but the shot is certainly better than the score it got.
This is so cool with the bird, shadow, and reflection all grouped so beautifully. The position of the bird is excellent, with the wing tips in the water. And I like the high key effect. Really nice image!
I think you have a good idea here and high key can work. A couple of things that I think let it down though.
1) The water at the top of the shot - to me doesn't add anything. You could safely crop it out.
2) The head of the bird is too dark. Bring out the shadows on the head and I think you'd have a killer shot in conjunction with 1).
Dang! A little too early for Reflections without Mirrors. :) This has a certain grace, a little loss of detail in the brighter spots, but overall an impressive capture.
lol you know you should have called this "doing pushups - birdie style". That is what it looks like he is doing! It's so cool how the wing-tips are just grazing the water and the feet are sticking up behind him. What great timing for this catch!
The first thing I catch when viewing this is the wingtips just touching the sand. Then the presence of the reflection and it's resulting odd circle. Isolation of the subject, via high contrast, works very well.
That's my first impression.
Then to get critical, after all this is DPC right?...I notice some other things, good and ok. The birds shadow. I missed it at first. Adds another element of interest - that's good. :) The birds feet outstretched behind in flight. Didn't catch that initially, but it adds in giving a sense of urgency and timing to the capture. The sand, the water, the pelican, all worked to tell me this was taken at the shoreline...the washed out lapping water in the bg confirm that upon further review (doesn't add nor take away). Yes, the bird is a tad blurry in spots (mostly motion blur? on the leading wing) - would the image be stronger if the entire bird was spot on...yes, but it doesn't entirely kill the photo because it's not.
Love the capture of wings just barely gracing the water. Wow! You're timing was impeccable. The background really pulls my attention straight to the bird. I think it's great.
At first glance I didn't like this one, but then, the more I looked at it, the more I did. :) I thought it was really cool how just the tips of his wings were touching. Looks almost like he is standing on them. A crop/composition that didn't have him quite so centered may have given the picture a bit more dynamic feeling. He is pretty centered, and while it looks like he is getting ready to fly, there is nowhere for him to fly to. Of course, I am one of your two nines, so . . . .:)
I'm not an expert on high key but as a general rule I think it works better for lighter subjects than contrasty ones. As a result the background looks overexposed rather than high-key. A little bit of USM (or more USM!) on the bird would have preferable as well I think. The capture itself is nothing short of remarkable and with some effective processing (this would work well in B&W you know) it's potentially a real winner. Well done!
MMM I really like the pelican shots that you have been taking with your new camera. Love the fact that you have captured such a precise moment of action with the birds feet just leaving the ground. The high key finish works well although perhaps I would have liked it even more if I could have seen some of the bird's features. Lovely composition on this shot. Very beautiful
This is a great "stopped motion" image. Great clarity and focus. The only thing that I wish was a little darker was the sand right behing the bird. I can see all of the surf but it's really washed out, kind of a bummer but still a great photo. 7 from me -BB
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