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Another afternoon watching these guys have a ball..
Love the bokeh on this one, was lucky that the gull was close and provided good separation between it and the water

Feasting away

Take off

Afternoon landing

gull was close and provided good separation between it and the water

yeah that is pretty premo! I also like the inclusion of the little bit of food or scrap that he/she has dropped in the lower right!

I also liek the pelican takeoff shot, its astounding to see these things get off the water . My only suggestion with this one would be a bit of extra room on the left hand side so the bird is in teh centre?

Great shots... love the last pelican landing shot

Gerry, that breaks the rule of thirds

Big V wrote:Gerry, that breaks the rule of thirds

(this is gonna get academic.. )

how so?

As I see this image the eye of the bird intersects the top left 'power point' (interesection of the third lines), which in my opinion, in this case, would better intersecting the main subject - the whole bird (since eye contact is probably not super critical at this distance). So how are you intrepreting the rule of thirds?

Now, if one was to move the bird to the right and intersect the body with the top right 'power point' you would (still?) 'obey' the rule of thirds and also 'obey' the rule of having space in front of the moving subject

Note: I am not having a dig at you - more trying to understand, so if I am missing the bleeding obvious bear with me

Big V wrote:Gerry, that breaks the rule of thirds

Well, if we want to be picky, one might say that the bird is currently in the "wrong" third, and perhaps needs to be further to the right as we're viewing the image, so that it has "room" to move within the image frame.

Alternately, Matt might chime in with his classic advice.

I agree with you that the eye of the bird is in the third at the left and top, which is why I have framed it like this. When watching this take off, the water which is left behind was of more interest to me than where the bird was going. I do not have much to play with as this is basically how it was shot but will have another look and see if I can use one of the other frames in the sequence to see if it does make a difference.

Big V wrote:When watching this take off, the water which is left behind was of more interest to me than where the bird was

Fair eniugh, and in which case, perhaps a slightly wider angle - something giving a less tight crop - may have been helpful.

Cheers