I love ducks. The types of ducks around here vary by the season. American widgeons and goldeneye are two species that winter here in the not-so-sunny Puget Sound region. The mallards are around all year.
American widgeonsAmerican widgeonGoldeneyeMallards
It’s fun to watch the ducks. The goldeneye are diving ducks that fish together in groups.
The clouds were moving consistently from south to north (left to right in the photos). I believe that the consistent shape break up is due to the Olympic Mountains, which arise pretty much straight out from the edge of the bulk head.
I set my camera up on a tripod as the first bank of clouds arrived, put on neutral density filters (CPL plus a six stop), set the aperture set at F/16, and ISO at 64. Then I took the above sequence of photos between 4:00pm and 6:25pm. The length of the exposures varied depending on the ambient light but generally went from about 5 seconds for the first shot, at about 4:00pm to 10 for the last one, which was during twilight.
Great Blue Herons aren’t rare around here, and at least three can be seen regularly fishing as the tide changes at Fern Cove.
I caught a few decent pictures of “Big Blue” in flight while I was over at my dad’s last week. They are very graceful birds, and very efficient fishers.
Mid-week monochrome seems like a perfect description of today’s skies. I took a couple of pictures while we were getting on the ferry and was curious to see how much difference switching to black and white would make
Color
Simple desaturation
Then I played with a more elaborate black and treatment:
Dramatic treatment using Nik
Looking in another direction.
Color
Simple desaturation
A more dramatic treatment using the Nik Silver Effects pro
Dramatic black and white
Since we had thunderstorms and a lot of rain the more dramatic black and white seem to suit the feel of the day. But my eyes did not deceive me: there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the color image and one that is simply desaturated.
A little later we got a little more light (and the power came back on!).
Color
Simple desaturation
Dramatic treatment using the Nik Silver Effects Pro program.