Tranquil Reflection

This picture was taken at Chennai Theosophical Society by Vikas Madhav when he accompanied a group of Sr children from a Olcot School school. He was their bird guide. The project was on Wetland and Mangrove birds.

I was with him , but I was not aware that he had taken this picture. It is Black Winged Stilt. The reason he gave me as to why he took a picture was- there was so much of activity going on around the bird , but was blissfully happy in its solitude and ignored the rest of the world around it.
The activity that was going on around it was - Men were fishing with their nets, other birds of the same species and other species were landing and taking off near the bird.

This picture entered the Veolia Photography Competition 2010 and was one of the finalist.

Personally I liked this picture as it looked like a Portrait ( Painting)
Panasonic FZ 18 Lumix , Focal Length 83mm, F -Number F/5.6, Exposure Time 1/30 sec. ISO 100, taken @ 8.30am , 10/11/2009

Congrats..!! Its great to know this image went to the finals of BBC. The reflection looks nice. The composition is fine. Seems the light was bad. He has clicked it nicely at (1/30) such low shutter speed. thanks for sharing.

I am fine with the composition. The image needs to be brighter. Since a main portion of this image is water and it is brighter, the exposure meter of the camera often gets fooled and it results in underexposure. A positive exposure compensation would have helped in this case. Please check the tips section for article on exposure.

Are you referring to the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer Year competition? If so, then the standard even in the junior categories are high. The winning images clicked by 14-15 yr old children are very good. Good to know that the image had reached the finals. I am sure he will go a long way.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi