Judges Comments

I love how this image almost conveys noise, I can just imagine the raucous sound the gull was making when you took this shot. Your presentation of this image with the small sliver in the frame of the reddish orange picked up from the eyes and beak of the bird is a very pleasing effect. It is a real joy to see the texture of the feathers. I know that catchlight in the eyes is often a positive in this type of shot, I wonder if you are able to on a new layer to paint in a soft catchlight of white using the brush dynamics of fade and then softly blurring the catchlight you could play with the layer opacity to get the effect that pleases you the most. I personally can't decide if it is necessary or not to have the catchlight. You could experiment and see if it improves the image. A real strength of this images is the shallow depth of field also the wonderful details of the mouth and tongue.