Back after doing well as a model in the Surrealism challenge, this is Spargel, my parrot. It was the first day of real spring weather here in Iowa, so we took advantage of the natural outdoor lighting and set up in the backyard. All of my pictures are done without spending a cent on supplies (I'm in college, trying not to fritter away my money when I don't need to). I draped a blanket over the deck railing, set up my camera on the tripod, positioned myself an armslegnth in front of the camera but out of the frame, stuck my other arm (containing the parrot) in the frame, and began moving that arm up and down. This is Spargel's usual signal that it's time to excercise his wings (a daily part of his routine). The ten second delay wouldn't do for this because he only flutters for a few seconds at a time, so I had to stretch and hit the shutter once he started flapping, which I did. We did several rounds of this.
On the computer, I selected what I thought to be the best of the bunch, cropped it, changed it to b/w, tinkered with the brightness and contrast a smidge, then ran it through Neat Image (first time submitting a photo that I sent through there--we'll see how it does!). After calibrating the size for the guidelines, I submitted it.
I just wonder how many people will notice that there's no way that he could indeed be taking off on a real journey--his wings, if you'll notice, are clipped.
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Place: 206 out of 300 Avg (all users): 4.6483 Avg (commenters): 4.4000 Avg (participants): 4.4959 Avg (non-participants): 4.7605 Views since voting: 748 Views during voting: 372 Votes: 290 Comments: 12 Favorites: 0
Thanks for the comments, all. You guys are right. That's prolly the last time I'll convert any Spargel pictures to b/w. He's such a pretty little fellow, and this shot didn't do him a whole lot of justice. I'll try again another day, and put them in color.
subtracted one from your score for being in B&W, parrots and such have beutiful colors why hide them? It looks like the birds is ending his journey, not starting....
Great pic. Love the wing blur. Clever that you managed to get the background totally white. Would colour have added something with a parrot? Maybe not enough "beginning" without the title.
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