For Bill44: seagull on stone pelican

[Maureen]

Guess where I went to-day.
I went on a bus trip with my Seniors Group to the Entrance
I did call out for you to join us for lunch but you mustn't have heard me.LOL.
What a beautiful part of the world.
For those that don't know...it's a pelican and a sea gull.

[Roxy]

Interesting couple of birds Maureen. Unless I'm mistaken, the seagull is live?

In any case it's a bit lost in the background. I suggest you might have tried to move around a little for the shot so the monument, seagull in particular, had one of those pine trees in the b/g, so highlighting the subject.

Roxy

[Geoff F]

But I have tried that moving around to get the best angle in the past; and when I am finally lying on damp ground craning my neck upwards and just making the final camera adjustments - the pesky bird flies away!

Nowadays, I always take a quick basic 'snap' to start with so at least I have some sort of image in the camera.

Maureen's photo, I think, would be suitable for a substantial crop which leaves 'Percy' intact and gives a lot more prominence to the gull on his head. That would make a really amusing photo.

Geoff.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Maureen,

Roxy and Geoff both have valid points, so next time something like this arises, as Geoff suggests, take one quick like this, then take one or more extras (as time and seagull permit), each of which has more and more photographic consideration. e.g.
Try to get all the main subject(s) against the same backgound colour that contrasts and makes them stand out more.
Try to exclude as much distracting background clutter as possible by careful viewpoint selection.

Would you like me to have a go at cleaning it up in post processing for you?

I could crop as Geoff suggests and then clone out some of the flagpoles, aerials, lampstands, etc.
The less experienced eye just doesn't see all that at the time, but we're all here to learn and help each other.
Then you'll have a picture that's probably more as you remember taking it.

Regards,

[Dave Humphries]

Hi again Maureen,

Herewith my cleaned up version, I hope you and Bill44 like it.

Maureens_Percy.jpg Maureens_Percy_ed1.jpg

My apologies for jumping in with my opinion, no offence intended.

Regards,

[Maureen]

Thanks for looking and the advice everyone.
No offence taken Dave and it dose look a lot better.
Must learn to use my photoshop a bit more.

[Bill44]

Ah yes, the infamous Percival Pelican Esq. I know in the back of my mind there is a story attached to him but at the moment I can't recall it. I have a feeling it has something to do with him holding the record for "Direct Hits".