Here's a different bird (Great Egret) with a different background. In last weeks post (White Ibis) I made a conscious decision on placing the background behind the bird. This background was "discovered" post exposure. It is composed of spring- run aquatic vegetation in shadowed afternoon light. My nephew says it looks like nuclear waste. Picture was taken at Manatee Springs State Park in Florida, with a N70, sigma 400, elite 200.

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), February 15, 1999

Answers

It is different and somewhat weird in that it is pretty nearly unidentfiable for me and might as well be a hand-painted abstract back cloth. The bird stands out so sharply againxt the background, it looks superimposed.

Such unusual backgrounds are unsettling because they don't seem "natural" and this image might be better accepted if the viewer had addtional environmental cues to use in deciphering it.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), February 15, 1999.

Larry, I like it quite a bit. It was obvious to me that the background was water as soon as the image loaded. The shot is well exposed, well framed, and very interesting to my eye. Great job!

-- Joe Cheatwood (cheatwoo@ufl.edu), February 15, 1999.

Larry: Forget the egret, go back and shoot a bunch of photos of that strange background! Seriously, consider working on it as an abstract of nature. Try different lenses and exposures, and you might come up with something that will be really fun!

-- Steve Kaufman (skphoto@xyz.net), February 16, 1999.

Larry, In the vein of Steve's comments I would crop the image to square format on the left. It leaves the wonderful curved neck of the bird and the colorful background which forms an interesting abstract.

-- Micheal F. Kelly (Kellys@alaska.net), February 16, 1999.