[IanF]

The theme for March 2008 is 'Monochrome Birds'.

This theme proved to be very popular the last few years with many very good entries showing just how well birds can be depicted in monochrome.

We have in mind for this month photos or drawings of a bird or birds appearing in Black & White or Sepia tones. Artists can use paint/pencil/crayon to achieve the same effect.

Camera software and computer processing software usually come with various filters/special effects/saturation controls so that a black and white or sepia image can be achieved without much effort.

Methods that spring to mind in-computer are to either use the Sepia filter/convert to greyscale or use of the hue/saturation control to remove all colour from the image. The process may leave the image a little softer so some sharpening/unsharp mask and contrast adjustment may be needed to add more punch to the final image.

If you haven't yet tried it then it's worth having ago as even the commonest birds take on an added dimension.

As with most competitions there are rules to adhere to and these are the ones for this month -

Rules –
1. Entry to be uploaded between 1st-21st midnight.
2. The bird must be wild and can be of any species.
3. One entry per member.
4. Once uploaded this is classed as an entry and cannot be replaced by another. However you have until the closing date/time of this competition to ensure that your entry meets criteria.
5. The entry must be your own work and not previously submitted in a competition on this site.
6. The birds common name must be given - though please add the scientific too!
7. Image size as defined by the Gallery limits.
8. Entries to be uploaded directly by entrants to the Monthly Photo Competitions Gallery.

30 entries will be selected for addition to the voting booth for members to vote upon. Entries not selected for the voting booth will be moved to the Artwork, Paintings and Graphics forum as will the remainder on completion of voting.

A voting booth will be posted after the 21st.

Comments on entries are permitted.

The 2008 monthly themes can be found here.

Any queries about this months competition please post below.
Examples are shown below.

[Jaff]

Cheers Ian. Been lookng forward to this one.