As I was walking down the path, I spied a really cool looking hawk. It was just hanging out on a branch up in the trees, doing hawk things. The only reason I really saw it because it was so white against the dark branches.
From where I was, there were a lot of branches and twigs in the way, way too many to take any pictures. However, I walked just 20ft farther, and presto, perfect framing. The branches made sort of a picture frame around the hawk. There are a few good things about winter I suppose, the bare branches being one. They're really great for composing, just full of geometry. Sometimes it really pays just to walk the 20ft more to get the right framing. You can have mediocre pictures if you take them just from any old place, but you can have great ones if you put just a little extra effort into finding the right place.
I shot using the sunny 16 rule, so f/16 ISO100 and 1/100. This gives the proper exposure in sunny conditions, it's been used for many, many years.
In Lr though, I did a few little adjustments. I converted to b/w, and I lowered the blue channel to darken the sky. The sky is blue, so darkening the blue channel, well, darkens the sky. Same effect as using a red filter. Colored filters brighten their own color, and darken their compliment. So a green filter would lighten green things, and darken red/ warm tones. Depending on the filter, it might also darken blues and yellows too.
I did a little tiny bit of contrast adjustment to the tone curve, brightening the highlights and darkening the shadows just a bit. Not much though, as I didn't want to over blow the white feathers of the hawk.
Birds are such amazing animals. That's all I have to say.
See you tomorrow!
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