Scarlet Macaw


Posted by Chris Fagyal on Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:40 am

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This is a captive Scarlet Macaw taken at Gatorland in Kissimmee, FL. It was one of two Scarlet Macaws rescued from abusive owners in central Florida. It's wings had been clipped and it had been severely mistreated. It was brought to Gatorland and they had nursed them back to what appeard to be good health. After seeing these in the wild in Costa Rica it really pains me to see them in captivity, or any parrots/macaws for that matter.

The background in this shot was an ugly building with some white branches behind the bird that just looked awful, so I did some photoshop magic, and took the primary color of the building, cloned it into the entire background using the magic wand multiple times, and then applied a very slight texture to make it somewhat more interesting. I think it makes the bird's colors pop nicely. I hope you like the effect.

Canon Eos10d + 400mm f/5.6, 1/160th sec at f/6.3, ISO100, Handheld.

Enjoy,
Chris Fagyal
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Last edited by Chris Fagyal on Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

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by Heather Forcier on Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:45 am
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Sorry to hear the sad story about this bird, good it's in better hands now.

The colors in the bird are simply amazing. It would be great sometime to see the whole bird.

The background does look "man made", but I'm sure like you said it's better than what you started with. PhotoShop is the best. :)
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by Bob Ettinger on Mon Sep 01, 2003 6:21 pm
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Chris,

A sad story but the colors in the bird are really nice. I agree with Heather's comments.
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by Rich S on Tue Sep 02, 2003 8:17 am
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Bird's colors are great & wing detail is good. Would be tempted to crop the right and even the top to remove as much of the background as possible.

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by E.J. Peiker on Tue Sep 02, 2003 9:41 am
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A beautiful bird and a very nice pose. A step or two to the right would have improved the angle to the head. The background looks a bit too textured to look natural - bluring it more would have made it better.
 

by Alan Melle on Tue Sep 02, 2003 11:57 am
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Gorgeous bird! I don't care for the background though.
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by Chris Fagyal on Tue Sep 02, 2003 3:24 pm
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The background was a shot in the dark. I knew it wasn't "natural" looking, but I thought it brought out the colors in the bird nicely and was better than the alternative. I also considered a "blue sky" background, but thought that also looked cheesy as well. I should just go take a few pictures of a "cloudy blue sky" that I can layer into pictures to replace bad backgrounds I suppose :)
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by Anthony Medici on Wed Sep 03, 2003 6:08 pm
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The wall behind seems too in focus to me while some of the feather detail on the front of the body isn't that sharp. Focusing a little further forward would have help make the front feathers sharper and put the wall out of focus more.
Tony
 

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