OK, I'm obsessed with this bird. I admit it. But he's the first Cattle Egret I've seen overwinter here, and I've been able to find him every time I've been to the park lately. Yesterday he was a beacon of light in a dark, swampy corner of the woods. How could I not take his picture?
PP - cropped, tonemapped bird in qtpfsgui (pregamma 0.697, mantiuk method, contrast mapping 0.1, saturation factor 1.029, detail factor 1), levels, darkened and blurred background a bit, vignette, reduced noise, merged bird with background, darkened midtones, cloned out one bright branch in background, resized, sharpened, added border.
Statistics
Place: 38 out of 172 Avg (all users): 6.2885 Avg (commenters): 7.5000 Avg (participants): 6.2024 Avg (non-participants): 6.3889 Views since voting: 641 Views during voting: 304 Votes: 156 Comments: 7 Favorites: 0
This is one of my highest rated images in the contest. I like the bright white of the bird against the darkness of the swamp surroundings. The title is a perfect fit to how the image makes me feel when I see the beauty in the dark and seedy comfort of his stomping grounds. I don't mind the movement of the birds wings showing in the shot. (I can take it or leave it). The softness of the log in the foreground is a little bit of a bother to me though. I think is is an important part of the sceen and I would have made some of that fantastic detail stand out a little more. Still, a stellar shot, and one of my favorites in this challenge. Good luck with it! I hope to see it on the front page when the challenge closes.
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