August 2024 Best in Monochrome: We had just got to Celery Fields just outside Sarasota and first stop was the visitor center. I happened upon this bird fight in the parking lot there. I already had my camera in hand, looking at insects in the butterfly garden, so I was half prepared. I just had to get my in-camera settings where I wanted them quickly and I just kept shooting them as the fight didn’t seem to end, but I kept thinking it would end soon. This is one of a series of at least 50 images. There wasn’t much color to it to begin with, which made choosing to go monochrome easy. The fight was intense to witness. I really thought the one bird would kill the other, but he didn’t. I chose this image to enter in competition because of how that intensity is captured in that moment. I processed this with Lightroom (camera raw) but was lucky in that I didn’t have to adjust too much. I’m sure I adjusted exposure and shadows, and so on, but not much. So right place right time, but that was all pure luck, even though my day was planned for shooting nature.