A Simple Enough Pleasure

"A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it."

- Anne Spencer

This morning, while having breakfast, my wife noticed some little dinosaurs flitting about outside the window. Of course I grabbed my camera, stuck on the telephoto lens, and popped outside (what was that about breakfast alone with one's spouse?...) After a bit of looking about I spotted this Eastern Spinebill having his own breakfast in a jacaranda. I snapped off a few shots, which were somewhat surprisingly in focus. I liked this one the best, with the Spinebill hanging upside down and craning his head back.

I sharpened it a tad in Filterstorm Pro, then added a mild RGB curves adjustment (a bit of an S) applied using a circular gradient centred on the Spinebill. I tried all sorts of crops - as it would be nice to have the bird bigger - but I couldn't find one that worked; I always preferred it like this. Perhaps it's more in context; also there's more out-of-focus stuff in the whole image. Here's the unprocessed image.

I had a hard time deciding on what to blip today. On my way to work is a derelict hall of some sort. There are many potentially cool photos it offers, but this morning the one I took was of a flower in front, with the hall out of focus in the background.

Large version here.