A Perfect Idea of Freedom and Flight
We worked our way along the coast from Lehinch to Black Head and I got plenty of competent shots between the hailstorms and the gusts. However, this one of the spray breaking over the cliff tops near Doolin during a short sunny spell was easily my best effort of the day. The great black-backed gull soaring effortlessly above the surf was the clincher – although I didn’t even see it when I took the shot! I used my Canon 70-200mm f4 lens with my old but serviceable 40D – I had the 17-55mm on the 7D at the time and there was no way I was swapping lenses in those conditions! The settings were 1/1600th of second, f5.0, 122mm and ISO800 – basically whatever it took to get the shutter speed up to avoid storm shake! In Lightroom, I applied a 2:1 crop to remove the uninteresting horizon as well as houses from further up the slope – followed by a little more cropping to get the gull near the thirds line. As the shot is all about movement and shape and there was almost no colour in it anyway, a black & white conversion was the next step. Then I pushed up the highlight and white sliders to accentuate the surf and spray, followed by more contrast and blacks to darken the cliffs and foreground. Finally, I added a split tone – quite a bit of blue to shadows and a of hint yellowy-orange to the highlights to warm them up. If you get this far, I hope you've enjoyed the shot as much as I did - taking and developing it. The title is from Jonathon Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach.
Keywords:
A Perfect Idea of Freedom & Flight,
Cliffs of Insanity,
Co. Clare,
Co. Clare,
Doolin,
Great Black-backed Gull,
Ireland,
Irish Examiner,
John Coveney,
Jonathon Livingstone Seagull,
bird,
breakers,
cliffs,
flight,
flying,
gull,
seascape,
spray,
storm,
surf,
www.johncoveney.ie
Comments
Donal Glackin(non-registered)
Incredible shot john,
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