Habits

Every afternoon we get a visit at the feeder by a family of Adelaide Rosellas. They interest me very much. One of them is a juvenile (not this one) and there are the two parents.

This guy (or gal) has an intriguing habit of picking up the seed by her beak, transferring it to her claw, and nibbling very daintily at the food. I'm calling her "her" because most blokes I know really wouldn't bother to be so "nice". (No offence :))) )

I've never seen any other bird feed this way, and I can't imagine how she got into this habit.

I've been trying to get a decent image of this for ages, partly because I couldn't quite believe my eyes when I first noticed it, and partly because the light is chronic at this position other than early morning. A couple of afternoons ago, I sat for quite a while with my binoculars just watching.

I'm going to start a little challenge of my own. Called MonoMonday, I am undertaking to post a mono image every Monday for the next 4 weeks. If you want to join in, I'd be delighted. Just tag your image MonoMonday, and/or let me know in a comment when you've posted and I'll link back to you from my own journal.

This is what Hobbs had to say on the subject a couple of days ago.

To me, images have potential for black and white if the light is doing something remarkable such as when the image elements and textures are being shaped and defined more by the highlights and shadows than by the colours. Also b & w has the potential to overlay things with drama which colours often just disguise. David Hobbs 20 January 2014

If you can't find any inspiration, the only thing I could possibly add is that mono allows you to see a very ordinary object (like a chain fence for example) in a completely different way. So I'd suggest we try to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary by portraying it in mono. Here's another example - not that this view is ordinary by any stretch of the imagination.

Speaking personally, I am going to find this challenge very hard - but I'm going to give it a go.