The Hooded Merganzer is a small diving duck usually found in secluded rivers and ponds. The male pictured here is raising the feathers on his head as a display - perhaps for the photographer! These shy birds are somewhat difficult to photograph as they are fast swimmers and frequently dive below the surface looking for food. They rarely resurface close to their diving point, travelling some 10 metres under the water.
This image was made on Kodak Gold 100 film. This is a crop, to make the bird larger in the final image approximately 25% of the original image is not shown. The negative has detail both in the white and black feathers - just! We allowed the original scan to capture that detail, but it is too flat looking as a result. The image above is adjusted to just hold detail in the white feathers (more obvious with the original resolution of the scan) and allows most of the detail in the blacks feathers to be lost to provide a more realistic presentation.