BACKGROUND IS CRUCIAL, especially when you can choose between a background of sky or one of something below horizon. These two pictures pretty much tell the story. The only difference between them was that for the first I was sitting in a safari vehicle, whereas in the second one, I stood up and photographed out of the top of the vehicle. Same bird, same light, only instants apart, but a world of difference in terms of how the photos look. The second photo has the further advantage of being closer to Eye Level. 

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Paying more attention to backgrounds is one of the top couple of things that many people neglect, but which can drastically improve your photograpy.

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Minor detail: these two photos are cropped, but otherwise, completely un-Photoshopped.