Plumage in Bloom

Gallery: AvianPosted February 26, 2010179 views11 comments

Photograph of preening mute swan taken on November 23, 2008 at The Celery Farm, Allendale, New Jersey. I love swans, and this one reminded me of a flower. Had to manipulate the image a lot --- mostly cropping, sharpening and increased saturation --- which takes away the natural look, but I still kind of like the end result. Would love to have your opinion.

Nikon D3, Nikon 200-400mm with 2X teleconverter, f/25.0 (not intentional, just inattentive --- or old!), 1/500, ISO 1800.

Kumar

Comments

11 comments

Comment posted by Rob Drummond on February 27, 2010 at 1:04 AM

Very effective Kumar - took me a little while to warm to it but I really like it.

cheers
Rob

Registered on November 8, 2003, 617 Posts, 8267 Comments

Comment posted by Catherine Reilly on February 27, 2010 at 2:45 AM

Looks nice, I think, Kumar. It's very dark on my monitor, but I like the form I see and appreciate it's flora-like appearance.

Registered on August 16, 2006, 603 Posts, 9192 Comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on February 27, 2010 at 4:30 AM

Hmmm..I'm longing to see the image better.
Seems very dark and the blue tinge is a little odd.
I think this could be a great shot with a little more tweaking!

Sandy r

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Bob McQuade on February 27, 2010 at 8:45 AM

Too dark to appreciate

Registered on October 8, 2009, 214 Posts, 432 Comments

Comment posted by Kumar Patel on February 27, 2010 at 11:48 AM

Rob, Catherine, Sandy and Bob,
Thank you for your observations. I had not looked at the original raw file for a long time.
In order to address your comments, I looked at it. Now I can tell you why the picture is so dark --- it's meant to hide all the bad stuff!!! Because I liked the posture of the swan, I tried to salvage something out of it. I'm not systematic in learning to use photoshop. I generally fool around with it till I see something I like. A jpeg version of the original raw file is attached to show you my drastic efforts.
Thank you for your interest.
Kumar

Registered on February 16, 2010, 27 Posts, 36 Comments

Comment posted by Monica Siri on February 27, 2010 at 1:36 PM

Kumar,
a bit dark but I like the pose of this swan.

Registered on September 20, 2009, 132 Posts, 3764 Comments

Comment posted by Sharon Hallowell on February 27, 2010 at 3:24 PM

I appreciate what you were trying to do with this, but the image would have more appeal for me if it wasn't so dark. I think it's worth working on. Sharon

Registered on November 1, 2003, 392 Posts, 4810 Comments

Comment posted by Bryan Hix on February 27, 2010 at 5:03 PM

Kumar,
I like the idea of what you were going for here and I understand the fact that you want to hide the 'bad stuff", but I think some photoshop adjustments (kind of complicated to explain here) can get you where you want to go with this. Darkening the entire image is not going to get you the desired results.

Registered on June 13, 2008, 117 Posts, 755 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Gulash on February 27, 2010 at 10:50 PM

You are definitely onto something here Kumar, at this moment you have more views on this photo than any of the other photos in the days around it. For me however, I find that the way the swan has contorted itself makes it difficult for me to fully understand the anatomy, the low key approach works though.

Registered on January 28, 2005, 879 Posts, 12098 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on February 28, 2010 at 1:25 AM

Cool shot Kumar, I'd lighten it up a bit.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Floris van Breugel on February 28, 2010 at 1:47 AM

What a lovely and dreamy image Kumar. It does appear a bit dark to me, but I love the forms and contrasts.

Registered on December 19, 2008, 306 Posts, 4840 Comments