WINNER CATEGORY LAGE LANDEN
Mathijs Frenken | Colorful Seagull

Name: Mathijs Frenken
Picture title: Colorful Seagull
Category: Lage Landen
Nationality: The Netherlands
Occupation: I’m not a full-time photographer, but I try to spend most of my free time on photography.

Technical information
Camera: Canon R5
Lens: Canon EF 100-400 IS II
EXIF: 200mm, ISO 2000, F16, 1/320 sec.
Accesories: I did not use any accessories.

Mathijs Frenken says:

Nature can also be found in urban areas, especially if there is water and food to be found. There is no shortage of water in the Amsterdam canals. Opportunistic animals such as birds in particular make grateful use of all that water and the food scraps that people leave behind.

Birds in the city are generally a lot less shy than their counterparts in the countryside or in the woods. This makes them easier to approach and therefore easy to photograph. This black-headed gull swam back and forth in a canal Amsterdam in the hope of finding something tasty to eat. The reflection of a colorful billboard could be seen in the water surface. I hoped that the gull would swim through the reflection so that I could capture it among all those colors. After some patience, the gull did what I wanted and I was able to take this colorful photo.