From the Kaua’i files once again and on this occasion, I was able to get a pleasing shot of a red-footed booby in flight at Kilauea Point. There was a steady stream of seabirds, boobies and Laysan albatross, riding the air currents as they swirled up the sides of the sea cliffs. These birds were swift, agile, and graceful as they soared through the air seemingly without effort. No vigorous flapping of wings here, just a slight angling of a wingtip is enough to go into a vertical banking manoeuvre like this. I did a couple of things to the image, firstly in the original frame the bottom wingtip was close to the edge of the frame, not clipped, but I felt compositionally the image would work better if there was more sky visible underneath. So I added some canvas and extended the sky.
A choice of formats
I also wasn’t sure whether I preferred the image as a horizontal format or vertical format, so with some cropping, I created a vertical shot as well. I’ll present both versions here and let you the reader decide your preference, I’m still not sure which I like more, but I like both.
As I’m sure I’ve written before, I don’t follow the conventional references to “landscape format” or “portrait format”. To me, they are horizontal or vertical format. When I look back through my landscape photos I see that about one-third of them are in vertical format, whilst about one-third of my portrait or people photos are in horizontal format. “Landscape” and “portrait” formats are essentially meaningless expressions.
Does it work better when cropped to vertical format?
Via social media: One thought on “Red-Footed Booby in flight, Kilauea Point, Kaua’i.”
RedWillow says: 23 October, 2011 at 6:56 am
Gorgeous. Just Beautiful. I like both but do like this last one for this frame. You’ve composed these so nicely and your images are Outstanding.
An image gallery is now online – Seabirds of Kilauea Point. ~KD.