-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), November 02, 1998

Answers

The sandpiper and the patterns in the water are very good and would probably be a strong image by themselves. I'm not sure that the branch adds anything to the image.

-- Joe Boyd (boydjw@traveller.com), November 02, 1998.

I concur with Joe B. on this also.

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), November 02, 1998.

me too. the log is definately a distraction to my eye. but at a moment such as this there is not usually a chance to move oneself. :-) i even like the transparent effect of the branches or reeds that you were shooting through-a narrowing of vision. too bad for the log. tim

-- Tim Tregubov (timofei@cyberportal.net), November 02, 1998.

Somehow, the whole picture seems a bit dark to me. I've looked at it on a couple of different monitors so I think it's really the image not my hardware. In particular, it's hard to see what's going on back around the bird's tail. Is that some blue highlight on the tail or is it just being illuminated by bluish light?

I actually kind of like the fallen pine tree, it is a different element than I would expect to see in a picture of a sandpiper. However, it may have been that getting proper exposure of the highlights on the tree bark resulted in a bit less exposure of the bird. If so, then I don't like the tree after all ;-)

The thing I like best about the picture is the moment you caught with the end of the bird's left wing sort of flared out. It give an unusual proportion to the between the bird's body, the inner panel of the wing and the outer portion of the wing. The ripple pattern in the water is also, as previously noted, very nice.

-- Brent Hutto (BHutto@InfoAve.Net), November 03, 1998.

Even though the branch isn't really contributing anything to the image, I have no doubt this was one of those moments of action that you couldn't pass up. So I guess you live with those elements and end up capturing some great behavior. It just makes you appreciate even more those awesome behavior shots with clean blurred backgrounds or foregrounds.

I do personally think a cropped vertical shot would create more attention on the bird.

Mark

-- Mark (Grafphoto@aol.com), November 06, 1998.