Beach Party

Shot just after dawn, this image came together in seconds but tells a layered story of rivalry and instinct. The beach, in its usual emptiness, became a stage for the coarsely choreographed interaction between gulls and crows. I didn’t plan for a composition — I reacted to it. And yet, the result balances tension, motion, and rhythm better than many calculated frames.

Technically, I leaned into softness rather than clarity. The overcast light pushed the colours into a muted palette, verging on monochrome. I let the flatness be, resisting contrast boosts in post, allowing the wet sand to mirror just enough detail without pulling the eye from the birds. Their positions — two facing off, one airborne, one oblivious — fell into a loose arc that anchors the viewer’s gaze from left to right, then back.

A longer lens might have compressed the space too much. At 85mm on APS-C, I kept just enough environmental context — waterlines and ripple texture — to provide setting without overwhelming the action.

This isn’t an image about beauty or grandeur. It’s about the brief punctuation in an otherwise quiet scene — a quarrel, a meal, a moment shared between species more often seen apart. Call it wild theatre, or simply breakfast politics. It worked.