Do I Smell Popcorn?by
mgsmith53Comment by spiritualspatula: Hello and greetings from the Critique Club;
Of course, the first thing that grabs my attention in your photo and what is the focal point, is the bright eyes of the pigeon. The orange and yellow of the eyes have an excellent contrast with the gigantic black pupil. I can only imagine how bright the flash was for the bird! I̢۪m also surprised how serene it still looks despite said flash, but I guess it is a pigeon, after all. You use of flash is pretty good here, and doesn̢۪t seem terribly brutal. You have nice, sharp focus, and your colors are nicely saturated, especially in the case of the eyes, which are further accentuated by the fact that the entire frame is devoid of color, with them being the sole exception.
There are two minor nitpicks that this shot could benefit from, in my opinion though:
First, if you had used a faster lens, the distracting elements of the background̢۪s lines and the sticks of the nest would have been blurred a bit more, bringing an additional focus to the bird (although as things are, they are blurred a decent amount). Secondly, it would have been nice if you had been able to get an angle other than straight up at the bird. This way, you might have been able to use the structure as some nice leading lines into the bird, regardless of whether you went with a centered composition or not. Your title was a good choice as well, adding some humor to the entry.
As your score showed, this was a pretty good entry and I had to pick out some minor things for room to improve.
-Derek
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