There are several reasons why I chose this particular photo to tell a little part of the probably long story about spring migration of the Lesser Yellowleg. First, I like the gesture of the bird, looking at the sky for a Bald Eagle that soared above our heads. Second, it is the concept of using negative space, the space that surrounds the bird and that emphasizes the main subject. And third, it is very difficult to find a spot in the Green Island Wetlands that is not cluttered with stumps of old reeds or just mud hills that stick out of the shallow water. It would have been easy to clone out the reed stumps in the upper right corner of the photo, but I think it gives the image a little more dimension.
If you would ask me, where would you like to head with your wildlife photography, I would say, I really like the combination of light and story telling, and I enjoy a claim for artistic expression in a photo. With other words, I don’t care so much for the last detail in an eyeball of a critter, although sharpness is still important, but gesture will play hopefully a bigger role in my future images. I may answer this different sometime in the future, but as of now, this is it, and that’s why I like today’s image…