Jeremy Martin
April 2026 - Black-capped Chickadee
Original
About the Image(s)
I took this chickadee photo in my back yard at the end of last September. The photo was taken with my OM-1MII and 150-400mm @ 500mm ISO 6400 1/1600 and f5.6. For editing I cropped the image down and using Lightroom removed the distracting twigs around the bird. I brought the image into photoshop and used Nik Silver Effects to do the black and white conversion. This is about as heavy as I get when it comes to editing, but I think it took a picture that would have ended up in the trash pile and made an image I really like that has scored really well in Open B&W print competitions this year for the two camera clubs I am a member of.
3 comments posted
Jeremy - I can see why it's done well in club competitions; it's an outstanding capture and your choice of BxW was excellent! The image in a word is, striking. And looking at the original brings to mind Ansel Adams' words, - You don't take a photograph, you make it. -
Your technical skills are evident throughout and the composition removes it from the common bird on a stick category. Sharp, detailed, interesting to look at - did I say detailed? You've really done a nice job with this.
While the subject is well separated from its background, the background itself is a bit of a distraction - in my VF I cropped in because the subject itself is so well presented technically and compositionally I wanted to show it off more, and also to reduce the amount of contrasting light/dark shading that I feel fights with the image. I then darkened all the background because it think it shows off the subject more and then flipped it horizontally - I have this Left-Right thing in the way animate object face within a frame :-) - dynamite job! Posted: 04/01/2026 11:59:16
Your technical skills are evident throughout and the composition removes it from the common bird on a stick category. Sharp, detailed, interesting to look at - did I say detailed? You've really done a nice job with this.
While the subject is well separated from its background, the background itself is a bit of a distraction - in my VF I cropped in because the subject itself is so well presented technically and compositionally I wanted to show it off more, and also to reduce the amount of contrasting light/dark shading that I feel fights with the image. I then darkened all the background because it think it shows off the subject more and then flipped it horizontally - I have this Left-Right thing in the way animate object face within a frame :-) - dynamite job! Posted: 04/01/2026 11:59:16
Thanks Butch, that's very kind and I appreciate the thoughtful feedback. When I was culling my pictures and saw the pose I thought it might be worth the time to see what I could do with it. Its always hard to take an image edited for printing and project it on a screen so you will have to take my word on the background working with the bird in the print. Its actually what one of the judges commented on as a reason he thought bumped it up to a perfect score. I think the lighter background helps separate out the black head and back of the bird. As you can see in the original image I did tone down the main branch quite a bit to be tonally equal to the other behind the birds head. I'm curious to hear other opinions on this and I'll have to go back and play with the image some more... Posted: 04/02/2026 12:50:11
I completely agree with Butch and think his interpretation is stronger. Wonderful shot. Posted: 04/01/2026 16:30:19