Monochrome
The word is monochrome (using any color)
Like many wildlife photos, my monochrome color shot of an American Kestrel having a mouse for breakfast was unplanned. However, the circumstances behind this shot were a bit unusual.
I was inside my basement studio at home when I captured this shot. How was that possible?
My girlfriend was upstairs with her binoculars watching birds outside our house. She ran downstairs to tell me a kestrel caught something and was perched on the fence post about 90 feet away from the house. I looked out the basement window and there it was!
I quickly grabbed my camera, searched for and found my 100-400mm lens (luckily it was handy, as we had recently moved and I still hadn't unpacked all my lenses). Took a few handheld shots through the window and ... totally unusable shots. Oh yeah, my camera was set for very long exposures from playing with intentional camera movement the day before. Fixed the camera settings, but the shots were still blurry. The long lens can be tricky to focus when handheld. So I found a tripod and set it up just inside the window. Finally, I got some shots that were in focus!
Luckily the bird stayed on the post for about 15 minutes, unaware I was inside looking through the window. Also, luck was on my side being in a brand new house, hence the windows were still once-in-a-lifetime clean.
One of my favorite shots was sadly out of focus before I set up the tripod. In that shot you can clearly see the prey is a mouse.
A few days later, I realized I could use this shot for the hunt. I played with blue/gray and orange/brown tinting from colors in the kestrel's feathers, settling on the copper toning I used for the final image.
