My plan the entire week for this challenge was to head to a a couple places I know that wildlife frequent. Cody and I stopped on at the UW Arboretum where you are practically guaranteed to see a large flock of mallards. They always swim away, but if you stand around for a few minutes, they eventually return and do their thing.
I grabbed a few shots of some birds just swimming or standing. But those were boring. So we waiting around, trying to capture some movement. I know the ducks often get up and stretch their wings, so I sat behind the camera until this one ducked its head in the water in a very particular way (an almost sure sign it's going stretch). I swung around the camera and grabbed some shots. I wanted to stay a little longer, but Cody was getting cranky, so we headed back home.
When I captured this image, and first started processing it, I really wasn't all that impressed. I kept wishing I was positioned so that I could have seen the duck's face. But as I got more into it, and the B&W conversion was taking shape, I started to like this more and more.
After I finished with my processing, I showed it to my wife and her instant reaction was "wow." Normally she is in line with the popular opinion, so we'll see if that streak continues.
Post Processing:
* Increase exposure
* Increase recovery
* Increase black point
* Increase brightness
* Topaz DeNoise
* Topaz B&W Effects
* Export as TIFF
* Resize
* Sharpen Edges
* Save as JPEG
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