Blue Bayou

My husband thinks I should post some of my older images, so this one is from November 2007. But truthfully, I owe this shot to Steve. He is the one who got me out before dawn, along Armand Bayou at Bay Area Park this time, and I saw and experienced nature like I never had while growing up in this area. This morning at first not much was happening, but the fog was interesting and the sunrise was too since I usually am not up that early to see it. And then birds started swooping around, small ones at first. I had my camera on a cheap Velbon tripod at the end of the boardwalk and was composing a shot of the fog and trees and reflections when a Great Blue Heron flew into the frame and landed on a stump in a perfect spot in the composition. He even stayed long enough for me to get several shots. Not until I processed the image did I see the bird on the bare tree branch in the background. It was a great experience and surely contributed to my enjoying nature photography so much, so thank you Steve.

Nikon D200, 70 - 300 mm f4 -5.6 lens at f10 and .4 shutterspeed, +1 exposure compensation, ISO 100, fine weather whitebalance.
Post processing: (this was done when I was just learning Photoshop!) Duplicated the background layer and cloned blur from around the heron, Curves for contrast, levels for global brightening, levels for black and white points, selective color layers to reduce blue hue, no record of sharpening at all.