Editing: Crop, select background from cranes, do levels on background then on cranes, color correction on background, remove noise from background but not cranes, adjust blue levels on whole picture, dodge and burn the mountains a bit, resize, unsharp mask, save for web.
The Sandhill Cranes stop here in the San Luis Valley in March and November on their annual migrations. They are nice to photograph and just watch the funny things they do.
Taken on the first day of November and here I am getting it put up on the last day of November. Talk about a procrastinator.
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8 - Really like this, I think it is the simplicity and the gracefulness that appeals most. Criticism; very difficult, especially with likely resulting contrast issues, but would like to see those birds 'pop' more against the sky, 'somehow'. The 'hazy' (and 'light') background still 'works', but again, if somehow to gain more 'pop' in the birds, may have made this even better in my opinion. Excellent capture.
One thing that's strangely remarkable about this is how the lead bird and the trailing bird are, in pose, very nearly precise copies of each other. I do wish you'd cooled the sky down a little, it seems a tad toow arm for me, but a wonderful, serene image and one of my top scores.
This is excellent. Such clarity on the geese. And the two birds on the end with wings down and the one in the middle with wings up.. looks like they posed for you. Very well done.
Nicely done. The clarity of the birds is great. With the peaks being white, it almost diminishes the impact a bit for me. I wonder what it would have looked like to crop out most of the mountains and just zoomed in more on the birds. Just a thought. Still, well done and quite unique!!! 8
What perfect focus on this! It's beautiful! The snowy faded mountains in the background add so much to this too. Congratulations on a perfectly executed image!
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