Peaceful Mourning Doves

The feeder was busy: quick wing flicks, small birds cleaning up the spill. I looked up and two doves were parked on the hanger, side by side, and snapped a phone shot.

Later the file didn’t match that morning. It read too dark, and the blue went harsh and weirdly fake. The goal was simple: bring out the calm, keep the two-together feeling, and make the light look like I felt.

I worked the frame as one piece. First pass: an impressionist read to see what lived in the scene. It wasn’t bad, but I wanted more.

Second pass: warmer, less blue, still impressionistic. I fed the original photo back in to keep it true. That one landed. The warmth held, the detail stayed where it mattered, and the image matched the feeling when I looked up..

The tone was on point: warm, easy to live with, not loud. From a few feet away the larger shapes and color do the work; up close, the faces hold together. In the end, it kept what I saw: a small warmth nearly drowned by sky blue, brought back with a simple recolor.