Black and White at Brigantine NWR

Here is a brief selection of birds from the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division in Oceanville, NJ. Some are Summer visitors and the Snow Geese are Fall and Winter Visitors. Brigantine has a huge variety of birds & wildlife. Eagles, Ospreys, Egrets, Herons, shorebirds, gulls, terns, skimmers, rails, down to smaller birds. The birds here are White with Black (or Dark Brown). In bright light these can be a challenge to photograph and not blow out the whites and still retain detail in the dark areas. If they have black or dark brown coloring on them or a dark bird next to them, I capture in raw formats, depending on the make of the cameras. I usually underexpose slightly for the whites to retain details and open up the dark or shadow areas in the processing software.  I use Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop or Lightroom.  Sometimes I will do additional processing for sharpening in Photoshop and I use NIK Color Effects to bring out some additional details in the whites. You have to be careful not to add too much and bring out noise. Brigantine looks like it is coming back after Hurricane Sandy hit last year. We like Brigantine because of the wide variety of Birds & Wildlife photography, Landscapes, Sunsets, Sunrises, Macro – Bugs & Flora, the list is endless.