BW Blue Jay by daisymiller

BW Blue Jay

When I was growing up, it was the norm to have pictures of birds in black and white. It was frustrating to try to identify a bird from a BW photo and a brief description of the bird. Now, it is normal to have bird guides with color photos. These were my thoughts when I took this shot of the blue jay.

I took several shots of this blue jay, who was trying to avoid getting his picture taken and at the same time get a quick snack. It was very difficult to get his picture taken due to this. Other challenges: the wind rapidly blew the bird feeder back and forth and the speedy movements of the blue jay. I was not fast enough to get the focus on the bird's eye, but I did capture him playing "peek a boo" with me.

I took this shot as part of the black and white photography book club. I followed Michael Freeman's steps of adjusting the contrast, hue, hightlights and shadow. My Photoshop is not working with my computer, so I used PicMonkey. I found a steep learning curve when I used PicMonkey. After several tries, this is the best I could get with PicMonkey. I should label this photo, "A work in progress", because I would like to work some more on the processing when I have more time.
Well, considering all the things you had working against you, this came out pretty good!
February 3rd, 2014  
Cool shot, and quite the obstacles too! Like the sharp focus on the feathers, and the feeder seems to be making faces.

What would you like to change about the processing?
February 4th, 2014  
Great image.
February 4th, 2014  
@olivetreeann Thank you! Some days are more challenging than others.
February 4th, 2014  
@archaeofrog Thanks! I would like the white feathers to be more white. I think the white feathers show up as gray here.
February 4th, 2014  
February 4th, 2014  
Great and nice capture beautiful processed to B+W
February 4th, 2014  
@daisymiller That is true for everyone here! You're doing great.
February 5th, 2014  
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