Stretching a little for me in editing

[Clovishound]

I decided to try something a little outside my normal comfort zone. I shot this image of (I believe) a female redwing blackbird. I decided to do something a little creative with the background. Basically it's just an inverted radial gradient that I flattened, feathered out and adjusted the exposure and color. IMO it doesn't look particularly unnatural, but for most folks they will see it as manipulated. FYI, I'm not trying to pass it off as something it isn't. This image resonates with me, so I'm not really looking for approval. I just genuinely want to know if it resonates with others, or is just another so-so to decent image, but nothing special.

Be honest, I have thick skin. As long as you don't say something bad about my cat, we're good.

 

[tonye]

Well it's different for sure, it certainly focuses the eye. Maybe a colour radial grad would look good, and it would look even better printed and mounted in a circular frame. Keep it well out of reach of the cat

 

[nikonbill]

I love cats

I think it draws interest to the subject, for me the vignette effect would be much smaller or maybe less opacity (lighter). With the right mat and framing the effect would make a nice wall hanger (as tonye pointed out) in my opinion. Really drawing the viewer in to the subject.

For many seeing the stick in front of the subject is not optimum, I think it shows more natural pose. However for the chosen effect to work best an uncluttered subject might be better.

 

[Clovishound]

Well it's different for sure, it certainly focuses the eye. Maybe a colour radial grad would look good, and it would look even better printed and mounted in a circular frame. Keep it well out of reach of the cat

Well, I did change the temperature of the radial gradient, although not drastically. I tried taking it through to very blue, and the other way to extremely warm. Obviously, this is a matter of personal taste, but this seemed the best to me at the time. I may revisit it. I also felt this might look good as a print.

 

[Clovishound]

I love cats

I think it draws interest to the subject, for me the vignette effect would be much smaller or maybe less opacity (lighter). With the right mat and framing the effect would make a nice wall hanger (as tonye pointed out) in my opinion. Really drawing the viewer in to the subject.

For many seeing the stick in front of the subject is not optimum, I think it shows more natural pose. However for the chosen effect to work best an uncluttered subject might be better.

I tried a whole series of density for the vignette, and settled on this. I could remove the reed in front of the bird, but then he would awkwardly be hanging in mid air. I could have shot this from the other side of the reed, but this would have necessitated me wading out into the pond, which the Magnolia folks take objection to, and the large gators take notice of. Just for information sake, I removed the other reeds and lightened up the vignette.

Here I also removed the reed down to where the bird is perched.

And here it is with only the top of the perched reed remove.

 

[Clovishound]

And an afterthought. I removed only that little bit of reed near the bird's head. I feel that this improves the image overall.

 

[nikonbill]

I like the last edit best myself. I should/could have been more clear that the naturalness of the branch looks just fine to me. When I see images where birds are tucked in, its a more natural composition, but this is my personal taste. I do like the reed removal a lot though.

I was trying to convey an observation I have noted across critiques I see on the various sites.

Finally, I think you should be very proud of your images. Its always enlightening to see what moves others but stay true to what you like it's you and your style.

 

[Needa]

Like what you did with the branch in the last one. Wonder how it would look with an oval positioned near the top to near the near bottom tipped a little to match the branches? I was think for less light on the furthest background branch.

 

[Clovishound]

 

[Woodyg3]

Vignettes like this are the kind of thing that some people like, and some don't. Kind of polarizing, I guess. I'll be honest, I don't really like this approach. That said, you've done a great job with the editing, so there will be plenty of people who like this shot.

 

[Needa]

View attachment 428310

Thanks for posting that version. Always like these posts.

 

[hark]

Vignettes like this are the kind of thing that some people like, and some don't. Kind of polarizing, I guess. I'll be honest, I don't really like this approach. That said, you've done a great job with the editing, so there will be plenty of people who like this shot.

I'm not quite sure about this vignette either. To me it almost looks like the bird is backlit rather than having a vignette on the image.

That said ... I really like red-winged blackbirds! In college, one of the extra credit assignments was to watch a video which discussed this bird. Scientists used something safe to hide the red and yellow epaulets of a red winged blackbird's wings. They determined the males go by the visual colors. Other males weren't bothered being near this blackbird. But this bird that lacked its colors kept trying to defend it's territory by fighting off the others that had colorful epaulets.