Still Goose

[djg05478]

Caught this gal in the early morning sun on a recent walk at the local wildlife refuge.

C&C welcome.

I'm curious if anyone else thinks the surroundings for her are just too busy. Perhaps a shallower depth of field would help, but I'm trying to fall back in love with my Tamron 70-300 and shooting it wide open at 300 always results in images with chromatic abberation, so I was shooting f/8 on purpose to test the lense. To me the image looks pretty sharp and please correct me if I'm wrong.

I almost wish there was a breeze to get some ripple in the water, but it was dead calm, the reflection is almost too perfect. But the early morning light caught her white chest kinda nicely.

I shoot RAW and post process in LR. I have some gradient filters adding blur and slight vignette to draw the eye in.

Thanks

[Cantab]

Debbie, an interesting picture. I had to look hard in order to be sure I'd found the goose! The piece of wood with a black eye made me do a double take. So, yes, I agree that surroundings may be a bit too busy. I'm wondering whether a crop lowering the top and cutting off the piece of wood might be good.

[flashback]

I like the crystal clear reflections but...it is hard to decipher the image. I agree with Bruce, maybe a crop?

[djg05478]

Thanks for the feedback. That was my gut feeling, its not a horrible photo, but its not easy to decipher the contents and I think that is an important element that separates mediocre photos from exceptional ones.

This was taken at some distance so I wasn't really sure what I had captured.

Debbie