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| Kingfisher Blues |
Last week I won the Give It Your Best Shot challenge in GuruShots, and as a result this photo is going to appear in Digital Camera Magazine! I'm excited :)
This photo features a Common Kingfisher (I always find it humoristic that such a beautiful bird is considered "common") standing on a metal wire with water in the background. The perfect combination of nature and man-made environment, showing how the Kingfishers use what we humans add to nature to assist them. This photo is unique in that it is virtually all-blue, yet the Kingfisher is very vivid and stands out.
What I like about this photo? As mentioned before, the colors. The photo is basically all-blue. Yet the Kingfisher is very noticeable against the background, and as beautiful as can be. I created a shallow depth of field by utilizing an open aperture (f/6.3, the most open my lens supports at the focal length of 400mm that I used) to make sure the Kingfisher is sharp but the background is blurred. The glimmer in the eye also adds interest to the photo. The pose is great, showing the beautiful blue background of the Kingfisher in its full glory. And the amount of details is good - zoom in to see each and every feather!
What would I like to improve? With everything said about the combination of man-made environment and nature, I think this photo would have been more beautiful if the Kingfisher would have been standing on a branch, for example. Eye contact might also have been preferable (even though in this photo we get a perfect side portrait). Being a bit closer to get even more details would have improved this photo, as well.