Well certainly stick me down as one who didn't quite understand the definition of the assignment, that and doing it rushed (and drunk and/or hungover) before I packed up my editing pc and moved house, all certainly didn't help. It's a style i've probably seen before, but never been too much interested in, it's not as easy as the rest of you make it look...

So now that I've got myself sorted out in the new house, I've had another crack, probably not the best choice of subject because it's a Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoo (I'll keep looking for a better shot of a white Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo, i've got enough shots of them), it was already +3 when I took it to get at least some detail in the feathers. I've tried to keep that detail, wash out the background that wasn't already, and keep some sort of contrast still.
It's not going to win (there's others here way to good), but a win for me will actually be figuring out how to make this sort of shot at all...