Diversion

"Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men."

- George Jean Nathan

I took a brief wander looking for photos this afternoon. As I walked along I noticed this Masked Lapwing standing and hopping a little on one leg. At first I thought it odd - even wondered if it might be injured - but then I remembered reading that in order to distract potential predators' attention away from from their young, lapwings do in fact hop on one leg. Sure enough, its mate was nearby, also on one leg, and off to the side were the chicks - presumably from the clutch of eggs I blipped in the same spot a month back. They were very cute, but I didn't want to distress the parents, so after a quick glance I carefully paid them no more attention, and moved slightly away from them - towards the adult to get a couple of photos, and then left them alone.

I only had my little lens, so this has been cropped a fair bit. I sharpened the lapwing a little, but otherwise it's as taken.

As well as this photo, I had a bit of fun today playing with B&W conversion of a photo I took of a bit of brick wall, green, doors, ivy, and grass. I had downloaded Snapseed on my iPad a while ago - mainly because it was free - but hadn't used it. Primarily I didn't use it because it's preset-based, and I've come to like doing things manually, and differently for every photo, as it requires. however, after finding out today that Snapseed is produced by Nik Software, who also do the Siver Efex plugin for B&W conversions (looks super cool but is super-duper expensive), I thought I'd give it a go.

First: it is very nice indeed. Second: I preferred the results I got in Filterstorm - which didn't take much longer. ;-)

Large version here.