If you've ever photographed black skimmers, you'll recognize what this one is doing; he's calling to his mate just a few steps away, with a noise that's more akin to an ankle biter dog than a bird. I was halfway between seated and lying flat, with the tripod legs spread out and pushed into the sand, going for a blurred late-day water background that would make the black, white and orange of the skimmer really stand out. Luckily there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and when the wind calmed down, there weren't many distracting waves in the water to mess up the shot.
In post-processing, I cropped to about 70-75% (I'd misjudged where I wanted the bird in the frame on set-up, and when he raised his head to call, I pushed the button, figuring I'd rather crop a bit than miss a good shot. (What you lose in reach with a full frame camera instead of a crop factor body, I'm finding you more than make up for in image quality!). I removed a single distracting band in the water, and ran the NIK tonal contrast/detail extractor on the entire bird at 15%.
5D mkIV, 500mm f/4 IS, 1.4x TCIII
1/2000 @ f/8, ISO 400
DPP/Photoshop
Theme: Barking skimmer
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