I took this photo in May at the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge. I posted the original photo without cropping it in my Great Blue Heron post. I also posted the photo to the Nature Photographers’ Network and the people there suggested that I crop the photo down to make it a portrait and highlight the back-lit beak and vibrant eyes. They thought that the background in the original photo was too distracting. So which photo do you like better?
It was amazing to be so close to this bird and takes its picture from the photo blind. I was using a Nikon 600mm f/4 AF-S II lens. The bird was so close that I wasn’t able to include the feet in the original picture. I should have rotated the camera to take a vertical picture but I didn’t think of that at the time.
Original Photo:
