I think the closest thing to actually getting to see the bird first hand is to get the same bird and different angles. Don't you? If you just look at one picture of a bird that was taken by the photographer at a show where the bird is set and posed in a certain way, it is not a true representation of that bird. So, you have to look at it from different angles. Just as you would at a how, right? Judges don't merely look at birds in the cage by walking by, the handle them, the look at them standing, they use their little sticks to move them around in the cage to see the WHOLE bird. To judge anything based on one split second snapshot is just ludicrous. I pulled a couple of cockerels out as I was getting ready for the show and posted a video of them on our FB group so that people could see the whole bird as it moved around in the cage, and to see that the color wasn't something I had adjusted for in a photo. If you can't touch them, you should try to see them moving and short of that, then look at several angles.this is a great example of why it is hard to judge from a photo. He looked decent until I saw the top down pic. The width of back pinches in at the tail. I don't comment on online color.
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