It was one those classic winter morning sunrises on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon! The light slowly builds in the depths of The Canyon like a perfect symphony rise to a crescendo as sunrise approaches. We scan left and right watching it build and photographic opportunities as they come and go. The air temp might be only a single digit, it doesn’t matter as the excitement warms the air and builds with the light. I have the D850 / 24-70VR in hand as I patrol the rim looking for opportunities taking photograph after photograph. I’m scanning over to the North Rim when from below in the morning exchange of air brings a gorgeous Peregrine Falcon up in front of me as it riding on an elevator in the early sunrise light. And there it hangs in front of me, close enough to reach out and touch so by instinct, I put the camera to my eye and shoot. I’ll never forget the experience!
The one problem for me is I have a D850 / 24-70VR in my hand! In my world, I don’t have a photograph that shares this experience. Yes, you see one above but it’s one where the image was severely cropped in post to get the image size you see. You must understand, I don’t crop in post. After I missed this shot, I did put the 300PF on and waited. The Peregrine didn’t appear until I went back to the 24-70VR, doing that twice to me, so I never got “the” shot with the right lens. It’s really hard for many to understand the stringent standards I put on myself for my photography. But it’s because I know how weak I am and if I let myself slide on this or that standard of a photograph (a standard set by my clients and my desire to make money), I’ll always let myself slide. In the photo above, not only is the image severely cropped, the exposure was corrected because I was shooting for the landscape at -2exp comp, not an amazing Peregrine right in front of me. If I wasn’t writing this blog post, you’d never, ever seen this photograph. And for me, it’s that simple, I’ve got to get it right in the camera. I won’t sacrifice the welfare of a critter for a photograph and when it comes to my wildlife photography, what you see is what I saw. I know of no other way to improve my photography but always asking can the bar be raised?