Coots & seagulls in monochrome

This Sunday I had an hour walk in the park equipped with my 70-200mm telephoto, was hunting for some #streetphoto but harvested only birdies photos - mostly seagulls and coots. Later tinkered some of them in Photoshop, deciding what worked best - color or monochrome. Have a look at the result.

The capture freezed the moment. Nice!

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And now the coot part.

Those birdies look very cool, its a pleasure to observe them, they command any other feathered inhabitants of the pond - mullards, seagulls... even crows do not dare to compete with them for food or territory.

A crop of the frame above. Looks like a mask (of death?). Isnt it cute?

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Coot is doing its preening job.

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Which one won this round of the match – color or monochrome? The answer is not clear to me.... perhaps I'd rather go with color, tho B-W look quite satisfying to me too.

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This one did not turn well into monochrome,in my opinion. Too much details and not enough overall contrast of black and white areas. The only thing I love about this frame is the expressive texture of the willow branches in the top of the frame - translated well into monochrome. But, again, in color version they look even more attractive.

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Monochrom seems preferrable to me here - due to the tree bark and water textures, due to the massive black / white spots. There is no confusing flickering here and there. The action is shown in close-up and is expressive, color nuances are unnecessary here.

Thats all for today!

All images taken by me, copyright (c) @qwerrie

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