Seagull - Exit Stage Left

[iLeafy]

A seagull walking away in disgust. Taken at Mallaig Harbour in Scotland.

IMG_7174.jpg

The original had a rather crowded background with the harbour, boats and buildings in the background, and I almost dismissed the image before I realised that a tight crop, shift to mono and some Lightroom editing of the blacks etc. resulted in a rather pleasingly moody picture! I won't be so dismissive in future ...

Taken on a Canon 400D, 50mm prime, 1/4000s at f/1.8, ISO100

Alan

[TonyT]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

Works for me

[the black fox]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

nicely done but to much negative space on the left ,a square crop might help ,and give it more impact

[tesarver]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

nicely done but to much negative space on the left ,a square crop might help ,and give it more impact

Agree with Jeff

Tom

[iLeafy]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

Appreciate the feedback, thank you

Updated to a square format:
IMG_7174.jpg

[Stan]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

subject moving out of the frame never really work so for me a square crop doesnt really work either

BTW there is no such species as seagull, there are gulls of various types, difficult to tell from mono but this is probably a herring gull

Stan

[iLeafy]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

This was the original:
IMG_0233.jpg

You can perhaps see why I initially dismissed it.

I'm new to this, so it is fascinating to get feedback and to see the variety of opinions as well - and I am hugely grateful to everyone for their time. If anyone has the inclination I would be interested to see what you would have done with the original (accepting 'put it in the bin' as a valid answer)...

(Also learning to properly identify my subject - as you say, this appears to be a Herring Gull)

[ctrollen]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

It's difficult to do much starting with a low-res picture but I would clone out all of the out-of-focus boats and crop so that there was more space to the left of the gull.

Something like:

IMG_0233_edit.jpg

[colin C]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

Hi Alan

Thanks for the full size image and I have now had a two minute play in Photoshop. I think you had the right idea concentrating on the Gull (I nearly wrote Seagull - smack my wrists!) and I also consider your judgement was sound turning it into a Mono, so I have followed your lead and just altered the composition a little.

Subjects sit better in the frame if they have room to move into, so it's always best to have more space in front and less behind the subject. Not quite so easy in your case, as that would have meant quite a lot of area to the left of the out of focus black post being included. I got over this by selecting an area to the left of the Gull's head and making a separate layer of it. Using the move tool, I grabbed the left side of that layer and stretched it to the left, which effectively moved the black post further to the left. I then blended both layers together, using a layer mask. Then cropped to suit and here the square format seemed to work better and concentrate the image on the Gull. Then change to black and white, then darken the out of focus highlights, again to concentrate on the Gull and avoid any distractions. Then darken the foreground a little, to lead into the gull. Finally, just a little sharpening, but only on the Gull.

Hope you like it, no doubt other members will rise to the challenge and improve on my efforts.

[tesarver]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

Edits are much better.

Tom

[iLeafy]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

Amazing, thank you. Photoshop being high on my list of things to learn how to use ... this gives me a project to work on!

[colin C]

Re: Seagull - Exit Stage Left

I would opt for Photoshop Elements, rather than the full version of Photoshop.