‘Kiss of Death’

Nice action and I like the blood on the Opsrey legs - on my monitor -- the background doesn't look natural -- too dark - but Ithat could be just my monitor -- bird details are very good

Mike, the details in the bird and fish are great. Given that you used your flash, I'm guessing that this was getting near dark, which is why the sky is so dark and unnatural looking. Lightening the sky, if possible, would make this even better.

Great action, well photographed. I can image that brighten the BG a little would enhance the image, although the dark blue adds some dramatic feel to the image... Curious how it would look when the BG is adjusted somewhat. That said, a killer image ,Hans

Nice action and sharpness. My first reaction before reading your techs was this was a flash image. The dark background with the bright reflection on the perch was my first clue. Balancing ambient and flash would have really helped this image. A slightly slower shutter and/or a wider aperture would have provided more ambient light. Flash dialed down by about 1, maybe a bit more, would have helped with the overly flashed appearance of the osprey.

Great pose, Mike. I don't know what your lighting situation was, but backing off on the flash might have helped reduce the glare from the perch and the slightly unnatural tones in the bird. I just looked at your shooting specs and notice that it was almost 7:30 pm with sunset in Florida at around 7:35, so you were probably pretty constrained to using full flash.

Hi Mike. As already discussed your osprey photo does have the appearance of a flashed image. The effect is quite apparent, and I think it is actually quite attractive as such, as long as this is the effect you are hoping for. The dark background and saturated colours have a sort of studio feel.

Is that a fish hook I see on the fish, hope not, as "kiss of death" takes on an even more insidious meaning for the poor osprey.

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to comment on this image and I appreciate everyone’s taste and opinions as they help me greatly to refine my style of imagery presentation.
Gary, double thanks, you got what I was going for with this image. There is nothing subtle about this insidious encounter that I witnessed for some 15 minutes. I was able to get very close and take 40 to 50 images at every camera and flash setting you can think of.
Dennis you are correct on the timing of the sunset and I had lost most all light. I processed this particular image about 40 minutes after the encounter and was still excited about the opportunity I had lucked into. I choose this over flashed one to work first because of it’s intensity. As one of the first in the series and some distance away, I was at zero flash compensation to start with. I darkened the outer perimeter of the sky to draw the viewers eye into the action. I used some mild selective saturation on the blood, eyes of both subjects and the Osprey’s beck and mouth area for effect. The studio look that Gary mentioned, I work hard on to portray and was intended to add a surreal look to the harshness of nature pictured here to help try and attract a wider audience to appreciate this image.
Gary what you are seeing as a fish hook under the chin of the catfish is only a curled whisker of the catfish.
Thanks again everyone . . .

Mike,
Killer image....pun intended. I agree with others about the flash harshness of this image. I read your entry and understand what you are going for and it works pretty well for me. In the larger image the black part of the eye has a bluish purple coloration to it and is very un-natural. Very simple to fix but it's a dead give away to the flash set up you were using. All the same I really like this image a lot. The details are very sharp and the the lighting hits the parts of the image tat you want to hit and nothing else. It draws your eye in to the real meat of the image. I do find that the red of the blood is a little over cooked but what a cool image Mike. Congrats to you.