Snowy Egret/redo

A nice pose and setting, Barbara, and I love the lighting.  An excellent job on the processing.

Hi Barbara.
Nice back lighting. The whole thing  needs "lifting" a little but without compromising that very nice  back light..
Could be a bit tricky.
Cheers
John

Beautiful shot, Barbara.  I love the back lighting, and the way he is showing off one of his beautiful trademark yellow feet.  It is looking a bit dark on my monitor too, but like John said, it could be tricky, as you don't want to ruin that back lighting or brighten the white bird till you lose the details in his feathers.  It is an excellent capture, perfect timing. 

Tricky lighting for sure here Barbara, you managed nice detail in the whites despite the backlight although they do look a bit dark.  The yellow foot adds a lot.

Nicely timed and in tricky light, Barbara.  I like the generous framing to show the environment.

Thank you for all the feedback.  I'm not sure, but does this make enough difference and leave the whites okay?  I'm using my laptop monitor, and I didn't realize until I showed this to my son on my phone how dark it looked.

Yes, to me it looks better.  I know what you mean about using the laptop.  I don't even bother editing until I am back home because there is such a difference in the monitor on the laptop and the bigger one that I hook up to it at home.  The first wasn't all that dark, but a little to me, and this monitor does a pretty good job (it is factory calibrated). 

Yes Barbara- repost better.
John

Hi Barbara
I think your first posting is better.  You did a good job whites on the shaded side of the Egret and the worm light makes the Snowy stand out from it's background.
Peter

The first post looked good tome, Barbara, but I must admit that the repost looks even better.

Yes the first post has better quality of light.  This was clearly a difficult exposure because the time of day.  Yes it may be a dark image however it does have its merits.

Thank you, everyone.  I do agree that the light was tricky, but since it was 7:55 a.m. that doesn't make sense to me.  Have you all found light problems even at 7:55 a.m.?