Fear and Greed
15 August 2014 -- 227/365
North Providence, Rhode Island
Anyone that has done much stock trading is familiar with the "Fear and Greed" phenomenon that drives market behavior. The fear aspect describes panic trading where the fear of loss drives prices down as more and more traders give into the panic and dump shares. The greed aspect is the opposite where traders, seeing tremendous gains in a stock, hold onto a stock too long and end up seeing their gains crumble when the stock falls. What does that have to do with blue jays? Well, this photo shows greed - the blue jay making too quick a move towards the peanut and knocking it off the fence - and fear. Did you notice the jay hiding safely in the tree near the top center? Neither of these jays got the peanut. When it hit the ground, the jay sitting on the top of the fence swooped down, grabbed it, and took off. Fear and greed both result in losses in the stock market, and they also resulted in the loss of food for the jays in my backyard.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders, adaptive exposure, regions, contrast, boost black, and protect highlights. A levels adjustment was added in PSE.
