The more pictures I take, the pickier I get about which ones are “keepers” (the ones I don’t delete). It used to be just about any shot that contained the bird I was aiming at was a “keeper” but now, after taking over 200,000 bird pictures, my standards for bird photographs are much higher. Look at the following images I recently took, and ask yourself, “What’s wrong with this pic?” You can’t click on them to go to their Individual Page on GreatBirdPics.com because they aren’t on the website. Each are flawed – something about them tells me, “This isn’t good enough to put on my own website.”
That last image of the Blue-winged Teal is tricky but it has something wrong with it that made me go, “REJECT”. I rejected the rest of them, too – all for different reasons.
This leads up to our next series of articles on how to improve your bird photographs. I will be introducing GBP’s Bird Picture Self-Assessment Rubric and discretely demonstrate how the choices you make in the field and at the computer back home can improve your bird photography. It is my hope that if our members use this tool the bird photographs you see on GreatBirdPics.com will be even better!
Have a great weekend.
Stay Safe. Go Birding. Take Pics. Post Here. Repeat.
Mike
If you would like to learn more about GreatBirdPIc.com CLICK HERE. Members can post their own GreatBirdPics, communicate with other members, and received regular emails about bird photography.
Here’s my guess. The middle two are blurry one due to movement and the other distance I think. The last one has a streak going down around the neck/chest area, maybe a branch that was close to the lens or something which is too bad because it is otherwise fantastic. Not sure what’s wrong with the first one, other than it doesn’t show the entire bird or the angle is bad?