White Peacock

I set myself a challenging task today. The sun was still shining after I left work so I headed to Beacon Hill Park to see what I could photograph. The first thing I saw was a beautiful peacock crossing the road. He had a beautiful tail and was very friendly - he would walk right up to me and stand there - but when I tried to get behind him to shoot his tail, he would take off around the park! I am sure I looked silly following a peacock through the gardens. Later I ran across a white peacock hiding out in the bushes of a garden. The garden was darkish dirt, the bushes were green and he was a brilliant white in the sun. The autofocus on my camera had trouble finding him and the exposure meter didn't know what to do! It took alot of experimenting to find the proper exposure setting and metering to keep the peacock from being washed out. I finally reduced the exposure compensation and set the meter to Hi Contrast and then he popped out of the bushes to pose for a shot!