Juvenile Brown Pelican In Flight

[Texas Dave]

It's beautiful Barbara! The details are stunning and I love the angle of the wing span. Almost a lesson in flight in itself.

[IzzieK]

Thanks Izzie. I will see what I can do about the eye.

How about this? 'will remove if you object...nothing in my file now after editing:

[Wavelength]

Magnificent.….

[Barbara Ponder]

It's beautiful Barbara! The details are stunning and I love the angle of the wing span. Almost a lesson in flight in itself.

Thanks Dave!

[Barbara Ponder]

How about this? 'will remove if you object...nothing in my file now after editing:

Thanks Izzie, you did a great job!

[Barbara Ponder]

Magnificent.….

Thanks Nandakumar!

[Barbara Ponder]

Obviously superb, I’m on board with all the superlatives here. But for CC, here’s something: The technical mastery (from shooting to processing) that renders for us this amazingly crispy-sharp bird results in a perfect pelican ON a soft image of the sea and sky, rather than IN the image.
I think this can happen often with well-shot, well-lit wildlife subjects for whom the only context is distant homogeneous sky and land or water (but particularly water). Maybe some post-crop vignetting to allow the image to acknowledge that it’s apparent subject is its only subject? Otherwise, I think including context that adds (booming cumulus clouds, waves crashing on rocks) and provides opportunity for more complex composition is an avenue to pursue.
I’ve sort of formulated this idea that to be more than documentary wildlife images need context or interaction, (think Audubon – who got both) but I’m a novice – perhaps there’s more.

Thanks Mark, I actually have shot with environment included and there are some that would say that is too busy. I like to shoot both ways. Actually I shoot when the opportunity presents itself be that with boring background or more complex. I understand where you are coming from but a lot would depend on lighting etc. in order to include the background I would need a pretty good size DOF and sometimes that is just not gonna happen, especially if there is limited light available.