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on May 17, 2019 in Wildlife Photography

Small, with Dash of Color

When you have nothing but green in the viewfinder, anything, no matter how big or small that’s a different color, can’t help but be incredibly visible and smack the viewer. This male Yellow Warbler this morning had to catch its breath which is why I was able to make the shot. Its nest had just been attacked by Blackbirds trying to rob it of its nesting material. It and its mate drove off the intruder successfully but it took quite some effort. It just happened to take rest in the perfect alleyway of leaves that provided the out of focus shapes and color so it’s bright yellow just sings. The saturated light from the overcast skies was perfect last element to finish it all off. Standing on a platform so shooting through the canopy with the D5 / 800mm and putting in the time was all that was required to capture small, with a dash of...

on May 15, 2019 in Wildlife Photography

I Love Small!

My style in wildlife photography is no doubt, “different” in that I love small! Critters are small and take up a small space and I like to talk about both as small as special. I rely on light in my formula to move the eye around the frame to find that critter then gets attached to it. I’m at the marvelous Magee Marsh looking for those two things, small critters and light and found a bunch. When this Red-eyed Vireo started to squirt towards the end of the branch through the D5 / 800mm, I knew I’d found my shot. As long as I got it sharp, I knew I’d love it. That’s cause, I love...

on May 9, 2019 in Wildlife Photography

Only Took 20 Years!

Oh, I’ve seen them many, many times. I’ve even photographed the Painted Buntin on many occasions. But those photos were all, “I saw this” when the photo needs to say “You need to see this!” so I have kept the pursuit going. A bird not much bigger than your thumb is on the secretive side of life so you often see them coming into a seed feeder or bird bath. This time of year, you look for the female because typically there is a male close behind. That was the case this week in Texas. We had seen and photographed lots of females. When I saw this male in the viewfinder of the D5 / 800mm, I hit the back button focus and shutter release and finally got the photo I desired. Now, it’s on to improve on this...

on May 8, 2019 in Landscape Photography

Point It Up!

It’s that time of year when summer thunderstorms float by overhead like some giant ocean flotilla of naval ships. I love this time of year because with little or no effort very romantic landscape shots can be created by just pointing up. There are only two things you need to think about, the light and the foreground. The light needs to be moody which tends to naturally occur in the late afternoon when the thunderheads form. The foreground, just a sliver is all you have to have to give the clouds a greater feeling of height. After that, just need the weather to work its...

on Apr 24, 2019 in Wildlife Photography

It’s Really Your Call

There are lots of rules in life, photography, and following them is totally up to you! I had the opportunity to shoot with the 500PF for our 1st afternoon at La Jolla Cove. Since I’ve not used the 500PF in this kind of opportunity, I went for it. I was sucked into that “shooting with a cool new lens” rather than thinking through what lens I should have shot with. As such, while the Z6 / 500PF is a killer combo, it was way too much lens (all you need is 200mm). That brings up this post’s topic. The photo of the gorgeous male Brown Pelican is really tight, so tight I cut off the wing tips. Most of the time, that’s a bad thing. In this case, you gotta ask, do you have light, color, gesture and if you do, are the wing tips needed? It’s really your...

on Apr 23, 2019 in Landscape Photography

Processing Mark?

The East Face & Mt Tom were simply gorgeous this morning! It was truly hard to keep my eyes on the road as the sun rose over the Whites lighting up the face. In fact, the pressure got to me so I stopped to shoot. With the drama in the light and the romance of the scene, going B&W was a given so that meant shooting with the Z6 as it does B&W so amazingly and then added to that, the razor sharp. Z24-70f2.8. But that wasn’t the real dilemma, including that one element was. Or was it? If look really, really closely in the lower photograph in the upper right corner, you’ll see the moon. While standing there it was obvious but as soon as the eye goes to the viewfinder, it appears like what we called in film days, a processing mark. It was really simple for me, the upper photo shows off the drama in the early light so going wide to include the moon wasn’t...

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