The Grebes are back

Walking around the lake the other day, I heard music to my ears.  The call of a Great Crested Grebe on the Lake.  Back from their winter travels.  Saturday was a dull and miserable day and I had other things to do unfortunately but my friend informed me these Grebes were performing their courtship rituals and dances.  So, Sunday morning...


This Grebe was crossing the reflections of a building in the water.  The reflections were quite bright compared to the Grebe so I was after a silhouette type image.  This didn't quite work but I got some nice shadows.  In post production, I warmed the colours a bit to bring out the oranges.  Then I added a colour lookup filter which really adds some contrast and more warmth.  Finishing off with a vignette and some vibrance resulted in this image.  A very majestic bird.










 Great Crested Grebes really can captivate people.  I certainly am captivated and was overjoyed when they danced on the lake.  The image on the left catches some of the reflections of light off the buildings.  I quite liked the crossed beaks in this image and in post production, I dropped the exposure, darkened the water a bit and warmed it all up a tad (should have set the white balance better in camera!).  Finished off with one of my vignettes and here we go.



There are some overhanging weeping willows on this lake and they were hanging between me and the Grebes.  The camera was still able to focus so I tried using the overhanging branches.  Not really sure how to describe the effect but I quite like it.  Didn't need to adjust the temperature much in this image and adjusted vibrance, cropped in, a small vignette and job done.



I hope that you like these and if you get the chance, spend a bit of time watching these guys... they really are beautiful.

Matt

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