dooragdragon Loc: Alma , Arkansas

He shows up everyday so I have named him George (George of the Jungle for those old enough to remember the Saturday cartoon series )

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

What I see is cracking sharp on George, great color, but a little compositional thing: my eye goes straight to the reflection of the bank rather than George. I wonder if you have this pulled back some so we can see George's reflection? I think that's what's needed: more George, less bank. He's great, beautiful, and SO sharp (I'm a sharp freak). :thumbup:

dooragdragon Loc: Alma , Arkansas

Thank you , possibly you will like the reflection post although the image quality is poor the reflection is what captured my attention.

jonsommer Loc: Usually, somewhere on the U.S. west coast.

Oh! You're getting so close to having a great photo here, interesting bird, good colors, repeat of bill shape in the mound moves my eye to the left, tack sharp, all great a promising stuff, but, but, but, oh no, somebody cut off George's legs, poor thing, and that's where the photo starts to fall apart for me. So, for me, it would have worked a lot better if the crop were different, showing either all of George's legs, or enough of a reflection to know he was standing in deep water, and his legs are just submerged or otherwise intact.

dooragdragon Loc: Alma , Arkansas

Thank you Jon, but he is standing in water that deep, I do no cropping or post processing on my photos.

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

In keeping with Jon's comment about the legs being cut off, I'm trying to imagine what the compositional value would have been to including enough of the water so that the entire leg length is present, i.e, the visible and submerged.

dooragdragon Loc: Alma , Arkansas

Would work if the water was clear enough to see the rest of his legs.

Phreedom Loc: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

I was a too old to follow George, but my younger brother often ran around singing, "Watch out for that tree..." :-D

Your photo is well exposed and the focus on the wader is really crisp. My only critique has to do with cropping.

As given, the picture is dominated by a hump of embankment reflected in the water, forming an arrowhead pointing at a darker area and out of the frame. George is to the far right and low in the frame which tends to make the eye discount him in the composition. We keep looking for meaning in the rest of the picture.

I think a tighter, vertical crop of George would answer the above and others who didn't notice that his legs are actually submerged and not truncated.

I hope you don't mind me taking the liberty of including a crop of your photo to illustrate my point.

dooragdragon Loc: Alma , Arkansas

Yes, I spent last night till the wee hrs of this morning working my cropping abilities and managed to get 1 posted but could not get others to work, but thats a different subject .
As for taking the liberty to redo my photo with out my permission is clearly stated in the rules as unacceptable behavior plus it cleary states on the bottom of my post it is not ok to made any changes to my photos with out my permission.
The do if first and post it then ask if it was ok is unacceptable behavior, there is a new section now for photo critique etc that does permit redoing someones photo without asking because by posting alone gives implied constent for others to do so .
As soon as I master posting my cropped photos I have several that i do intend to repost.
Thank you for your input, in the future please ask permission before taking it upon yourself to rework and repost any of my images posted here in the photo galley unless I have given my permission to do so directly to you ok .

Phreedom Loc: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

You are right, of course. I must admit to simply not reading your signature caveat before answering as I was concentrating on composing and providing a sample of what I meant.

dooragdragon Loc: Alma , Arkansas

Thank you and you have just helped prove a point in my post titled Lack of attention regarding people not talking the time to look at the entire picture before they makes rash statements or actions.
Pete

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

I sincerely do not mean to butt in, Pete, but that's the section you are in: Photo Critique & Analysis Forum. If you thought you were in the main gallery, you're not.

Nightski did change the rule to state: 1) By submitting a photo you are automatically asking for critique and advice on how to improve. Checking the (store original) box gives permission for others to edit your photo and or may make it easier for them to critique. If you do not want others to edit your photos you must clearly specify this. That said, you did say so in your signature bloc, but to be honest I missed it, as did Phreedom, because it's pretty tiny. Honestly, under the new rules, if I don't want anyone to tinker with the picture I will either not check the box, or I will put it in maybe all caps and/or bolded right up at the top to insure that folks see it. I'm sure that Phreedom did not mean anything by it. I know from what you've said that you do not like to crop or otherwise reprocess your pictures, but I never saw that line in your signature until now. :(

dooragdragon Loc: Alma , Arkansas

Thanks for pointing out my oversight Chuck and i sincerly am sorry to Phreedom for my error.
I am working on my skills on cropping and posting, the post processing I am not to keen on doing .
I have been doing all my postiing now in the gallery and I for 1 am guilty here for lack of attention in my replies my self .
I just finished a post regarding my problems with posting from picasa (which I use for cropping )
My problem is not being able to load photos cropped from picasa to the gallery ( althought I did manage last night to get 1 to work.
That is why I haven't been using cropped photo's in the past , but the ones i have cropped now I think are much better and sharper images for sharing and was intending to repost some of the ones i had posted prior.
I simply got lost to which section I was replying to and I do truly apoligize to anyone that I offended due to my error. The cropping is not so much a issue as the other forms of post processing .
Thank you for kindly bringing it to my attention.
Pete