Fighting Giant Petrels

[Gerald Kelberg]

In response to a recent comment, Andreas asked why I didn't like Giant Petrels. To me this image sums up my views on Giant Petrels - they're nasty birds, but they make great subjects!

I find that they are particularly fearsome looking, quite ugly actually. They are very aggressive - probably an important factor in surviving on the high seas, i guess.

And as you can see with one of these birds, they commonly mess with fishing gear, stealing the bait or the catch. And any fisherman unlucky enough to get bitten in freeing them, is likely to get highly infectious wounds.

Image shot with a Canon 1DX and EF100-400 II at 271mm. Shutter at 1/1600, wide open at f/5.6 and ISO 5000.

Processed with LrC and demonised with Enhance, then re-sized and sharpened in PS.

Comments and suggestions always welcome.

Gerald

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gerald, like Randy's image, you certainly get the impression of how aggressive these birds are and I very much like the spray, drool and 'boiling' water from the altercation.

Easier said than done with hindsight, but pulling back may of been better so you have more space all round.

From my perspective it just looks a bit flat, so creating a Curves adjustment, targeting Black, Mid Grey and White just adds a bit more oomph to the original capture and if its too much just pull it back. A fraction more USM wouldn't hurt, if you are using the USM in Ps then use the window that pops up as it's a 1005 and move it to the require area so this will help. Just be mindful of Radius & Threshold.

TFS
Steve