Very cool!!!

Oh I see. I guess I thought it was setup that way

Is your flash mounted on-camera? If so is it possible to mount off-camera and move the flash closer to the birds? The decrease in distance will allow you to select a lower power setting and get more flashes per burst.

Nice!

I like the B&W better. My only critique is in the stiff plain pose the people are in. The brick walk leads you to an uninteresting point of interest. Perhaps they could be embracing or looking at each other, or throwing a snowball. Just something that creates a reward at the end of the leading line.

We probably are more ignorant than most advanced societies but I agree with jerryC41. These gottcha interviewers talk to hundreds of people and edit out all the correct answers. Careful editing is exactly how journalists are able to extract negative or positive comments from both ordinary citizens and legitimate informed politicians to mold a story to a particular point of view or ideology. I'm certain the same dumb people could be found on the streets of London, Paris , or anywhere else in the world. Still they are quite entertaining aren't they?

Nice!!

Could be loose dust on the sensor that was shaken clean by the dust removing feature of your 5D4 after turning the camera on and off.

No filter except maybe a polarizer. Keep a white sheet of paper handy and hold in the same light the object is in. Shoot RAW and place White Balance Selector tool on the paper in Post. This will get you very close to accurate balance. Then tweak color to you're liking. Or do a custom white balance when you enter the room. If the display is behind glass and or lit with different light than room light still shoot Raw and adjust later.

I recently took a trip to Zion National Park armed with top of the line Canon equipment and decades of experience. I took hundreds of photographs with good, not great results. Why just good? Because conditions at the park were just average. No big puffy clouds, no ominous fog rolling into the valley, just pail weather and blue/gray skies. In response to this topic I could have shot virtually everything in auto-exposure mode and got the same results. Auto exposure just plays the odds. In normal lighting conditions you will get excellent results every time. But "normal" light will give you nothing but "normal" photographs. The worlds greatest pictures are invariably taken in conditions incompatible with the simple auto-exposure functions of your camera. They require a calculated determination as to how the image will render in it's final state of view. There are times when auto exposure is convenient and appropriate, such as in some sports or wildlife photography situations when conditions change rapidly, but for those of us wanting more from our craft manual exposure and the knowledge to adjust it properly is essential to advanced imagery. See a few images from Zion. All could have been taken in auto mode with the same results.

Bravo burkphoto!!!!!!!

I too am a Time-Life series fan. I know of no better set of books about photography. Even though they are dated and revolve around film photography they are incredibly detailed and helpful in understanding all aspects of the craft. Highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn.

If by flicker you mean light and dark it could be your choice of aperture priority automatic. If a white clouds move in and out of the scene it could be changing exposure up and down. Try setting a constant EV in manual mode.

I agree with Fergus. The border reminds me of a Charlie Brown outfit. Way too distracting but a NICE image!

I see the Beast and the beauty!