Hello all, no image for this one, and the post is partly tongue-in-cheek, but it is somewhat serious.

Many of the more accomplished bird photographers posting on this site often get critiques like "Almost perfect except for the head angle." I fully understand that head angle to the plane of the sensor & the lighting is important, but
I've been a little confused by just what is the "right angle". I've seen posts where a moderator has said the angle would be better one way and in another post another moderator (or just accomplished members) the exact same pose is critiqued for not having the right angle. It seems like often we are talking about a few degrees of rotation.

I think it would be great if some or a few people could post examples of the same bird at the same location and show exactly what a good head angle is and one that is slightly different, so we can see WHY the poorer one is a poor head angle.

The more tongue-in-cheek part of this is, how do you get the bird to pose with the correct head angle? When I have a cooperative model, one that provides me with perfect lighting, lets be move around and/or closer to get better foregrounds and backgrounds, and waits as long as I need to make multiple images of it before it flies off, I say "Thank you" out loud, appreciating the time and opportunity the bird afforded me.

What are you experienced portraitists saying to your models to get the right head angle when everything else has fallen into place?

:)

Richard