Birds on O'Connell Bridge - C&C

johnmcdnl

I was crossing the liffey there some of the days this week and notice that there were a heap of birds - I think there sea gulls - just sitting there and flying around the place - A lot of people had stopped to take a few photos so naturally I stopped too

I really was unsure what to do to get a good shot of them though so I took a rake and this is the cream of the crop imo...

(i'll admit to screwing up early on though by having the camera set to 0.3mp rather than my camera's max 12mp so the images mightn't just be as clear or whatever as they really should be but please don't tell me that :pac: - I'll know not to do it again)


1

2


3


4


5 - It's blurred unfortunately - but please over look that for the purpose of C&C

As I said I just seen them so it was pretty much spur of the moment but I did try to think the shots out before jumping at the photo's - I think I generally used smaller apertures to leave all but the bird blurred to focus in on the subject - I had a few others that could have been nice but the tiny photo size really did make them unusable which I think is a shame because I really think 1-2 of them would have looked really well but I'll know for again I suppose


so does anyone have any advise on what I could have done differently to improve these photos - or was anything I did do actually any good


Thanks in advance

Mountainsandh

Hi Johnmcdnl, I like the first one because of the unusual colourful background (as opposed to a plain blue sky for example), the bird stands out nicely.... the brown birds are youngsters I think. The pros will give you much better criticism sorry can't help more, just learning bits and pieces on here .
Mind you, I think all the regulars are tucked up in bed early getting ready for their People's photography outing tomorrow (wishing everyone a nice day btw, wishing I could go for a peep).

Not a fan of number 4, but I do like the perspective you're going for with 5, and had it been in focus, could have been a lovely shot.


I think number 3 is my favourite. Love the way the bird separates the bridge and the Taxi rank. Very Irish :P

1 is nice and 2 has a good angle, but i think 3 would be my overall favourite. Nice shots, though.

Gary ITR

Misleading thread title

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Onkle wrote: »

Misleading thread title

In fairness he said "birds" not "burds"

AnimalRights

For composition #1 #3 and 4 for me but when it comes to birds in my view the pictures have to be sharp and these are very soft.

Trev M

These look like they are straight out of the camera , you could possible sharpen them up using something like Gimp ?

I like 1 best

I like a nice birds arse as much as anyone but 4 is the weakest in my opinion.

AnCatDubh

#1 and #3 at a push for me, but really i'm not finding much in them (absolutely taking on board and understanding your own comments).

In fairness it is a difficult thing to do I think - that is to shoot these birds. Well, they aint the prettiest of creatures, and the backgrounds generally don't make for particularly interesting surrounds. Curious but, after typing the preceding sentence I went back to #1 and #3 (mentioned above) and the commonality here is the backgrounds are a little more interesting than the rest imho.

imho, such creatures need to be in flight to make them interesting. Landing, taking off, soaring - this combined with an interesting background. That said, it obviously wasn't what you were after. Its just (to me) that what you appear to have been after doesn't grab me for the reasons mentioned.

I guess one of the main problems imo are that these gulls aren't like the terribly interesting and aesthetically nice puffins of the skelligs which you could probably watch all day long or have the majestic tones of a bird of prey which excite you at every angle. They are gulls and for gulls to be the principal subject of a photograph I'd think you'd need it to be something special.