Sep 19, 2016 | Landscape Photography
Living in paradise comes with a price and wildfire is one of those. Saturday around 16:00 we looked outside to the northeast to see our skies black! We knew instantly it was a wildfire. I grabbed the Airport Security with all me gear, jumped in the truck to see if we needed to evacuate from our home right now in the Sierra. Having been on the fire line in my younger days, I know the speed and ferocity a wildfire can bring and the devastation it can leave behind. It scares the crap out of me!
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It wasn’t hard to find a safe place to park and watch the fire to see if it was heading for the house. I could also see the brave men and women (thank you!) who were there on the line. I could easily see all those pilots in the tankers (thank you!) who put their lives on the line to battle these blazes (you look closely, you can see small specs which are aircraft that give you some scale). I watched the blaze which quickly grew to 4500 acres and was thankful to see it grow to the north, opposite direction from all structures including our home. And as I write this, I can hear the roar of the aircraft right over our home as they make the bombing run. They are saying it won’t be 100% contained until the 30th and being the 4th fire in our backyard this year, we won’t breath a sigh of relief until the snow falls. We can’t thank enough though all who battle these blazes protecting what we call, paradise. God bless you!
Sep 7, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
Tawny Frogmougth
captured by D5 / 800mm
It was on the top of my list. I was very fortunate when growing up to be surrounded by the wild world of creatures being exposed to vastly more species than can be found in North America. I have no doubt that is why I have such a lust to travel and see firsthand our amazing wild heritage. I don’t remember when but the Tawny Frogmouth has been on my wish list to see and photograph from the very beginning of my career. On our last K&M Adventure to Australia, we were in the world of the Frogmouth but that’s not enough to see them. On our second to the last day, one of the guides said they knew where a pair had been hanging out. Being a nocturnal creature, we headed out just prior to sunset to find them. We all piled into the van and off to “The Bluff” we went.
Tawny Frogmouth
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We’re in a rainforest at Lamington Nat’l Park and on this particular evening, the clouds had lowered to cover the top of our mountain. As we drove down slope to find the frogmouth, we got just under the cloud layer clinging to the mountain as we pulled into the grove of tress where we might find the frogmouth. The sun was low on the horizon setting the sky a glow, wrapping The bluffs and forest in a gorgeous, warm light. As we set up our tripods a Grey Butcherbird appeared and performed for our lenses. Then a Peregrine Falcon went screaming by and flew about in the warm light around the bluff. Noisy Miners where everywhere filling the forest with sound. It was magical with the amazing light and all the birds that just appeared from seemingly nowhere. It was an almost out of body type experience for all. It’s then we were summoned as the Tawny Frogmouth had been found. But it wasn’t a normal sighting. A largish bird species, they blend in perfectly with their world. The guide made us all find the birds once he had us in the general area. What was unique about this sighting was the male and female were perched together (male is next to the tree). Normally they are in separate trees. So in the slowly fading magical light with all the rest of the birds still all about us, we stood there and photographed this pair high up in the tree. You can see the photos here. But what you can’t take away from these photos are all the feelings all felt up to this moment and the feeling that remained long after the lenses were put away. It was one of those moments we talked about on the the drive back to the lodge, at dinner and continued on the next day. Of course these photos bring all those memories alive in me, but they don’t come close to speaking them to you. It’s one aspect of photography there is no cure for because when you get involved with your subject your passion takes over. There are times when even a photograph is not enough.
Aug 31, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
The Satin Bowerbird is one of the quirkiest birds you’re going to find on the planet! Lets start with its name. Satin is pretty obvious, their plumage color radically changes as light strikes it going from black, black to the most amazing brilliant blue. Now “Bower” might be throwing you and that refers to its crazy love shack that it creates. The male Satin Bowerbird creates this crazy stick, two wall structure and maintains it for nearly nine months of the year. Part of that structure is the “front porch” which is a collection of more sticks along with anything blue it can find. Before man showed up, it would be blue feathers from other birds. But with man came plastic so now you can find any kind of blue plastic you can imagine. Now if you want to drive a bowerbird nuts, place a piece of his blue inside the actual bower structure. He can’t get it our fast enough! Now all of this is for one purpose, to attract the female who he will mate with for only a few seconds and then out she goes as the male tries to attract the next to his bower.
This particular bower isn’t that far from the main lodge at O’Reilly’s. When it was first shared with us, we were told it had just been destroyed by another bowerbird. Later that day when we walked by it, the bower was present again. Indicating it was active, we stood there to photograph it and within a short time, the male was indeed putting the finishing touches on the bower. Over the week, we saw the bower come and go many times, being destroyed most of the time by the Australian Brush Turkey which just went through being a turkey. It never seemed to phase the Satin Bowerbird, it was just like, all part of a day in the life of a bower. The best part was watching all the care the male put into the construction of the bower. He would come in with his stick, carefully place it in the structure then using only his bill, push it into place and into the ground. The whole time, he had an eye on the canopy overhead looking for a female. One time he saw a female and man, did he turn on the charm. As you can see below, he picked up a flower (where it got that from is still a mystery). Now he has no song, sounds more like his loosing his stomach when he calls. He puffs up, does a kind of dance, points to all his blue “stuff” on his porch and hopes a lot. We never saw any mating but we saw him try a lot. It’s a helluva a biological strategy for getting lucky!
Getting the photograph you might think is a challenge but actually with today’s technology, it’s not. The photographic problems are, shooting in a dark forest a dark subject that is constantly moving. Since you’re shooting through the forest limbs, branches and debris, you have to find an avenue through it all to actually see the bower. A long lens with a narrow angle of view is key, I went with the 800mm. With it being dark, you gotta use a higher than normal ISO, I went with 800, to have a shutter speed that would prevent ghosting since you’ve gotta use flash. I turned to the D5 / SB-5000 because iTTL is so important in the exposure. To meld the ambient light (so important in these photos) with the flash (essential in these photos), I dialed in -.07 in the D5 (for the ambient light) and -3.0 for the flash (also dialed via the body). That combination is what is bringing life to this crazy bird who when it comes to love, is as smooth as satin!
Aug 24, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
The very first morning I caught just a couple of frames and that was it. They were those kind of frames which give you a taste but leave you wanting more. And in this case, the frames were in mixed light of an unique individual so I couldn’t instantly key out the bird. And it wasn’t one we’d seen on our previous trip to O’Reilly’s. A day went by before we saw another individual and this time, had a long look and photographed a typical individual and I knew in the viewfinder was a Grey Shrike-thrush. It’s actually a common species, not that hard to see nor photograph if you know where it hangs out. But I was already hooked so I went into my normal mode, making the common, uncommon.
The quest for the uncommon photo that told its story started with knowing the stage I wanted to set for my star. I wanted to speak to its living in a dark rainforest. With this idea, I started off by selecting the gear, D5 / 800mm / SB-5000 for this reason, the background. The odds were I would be shooting up into the canopy. I wanted just a squeak of light coming through the canopy and that meant a long lens with a very narrow angle of view (didn’t need long lens for subject size, its a big bird that gets real close). Since I was in a dark rainforest and shooting up into the light, flash was a must. Here the D5 / SB-5000 do a beautiful job, just brilliant if, if you dial in the right numbers to meld the light. In this case, those numbers were -0.7 exp comp in the body and -3.0 exp comp in the flash (dialed in via the body). With the stage set and technical out of the way, I just needed the star to perform. What you see is very natural biology as the Grey Shrike-thrush turn their head to listen to the noises of the forest. I just happened to luck out to have all the stars align to make the click while it was doing just that. I had to come home with the shot and I did since it hooked me the first day!
Aug 22, 2016 | Landscape Photography
Lamington Nat’l Park
captured by D5 / 24-70VR
click to see larger
I’ve been shooting panoramas or “panos” since I first picked up a camera. Back in the old days, to share the panoramic views I was so fortunate to witness, I had three Kodak slide projectors aligned so when projecting, the three images of the pano would come together on the screen into one photo. Sharing the wonders our vision brings to us with others is the heart and soul of photography! But carrying around three projectors to share the pano was never practical. Then came digital and the internet making sharing the pano much, much easier. But the taking and assembly of panos up until a year ago was still a challenge. Now, it’s literally a snap but many don’t seem to realize this, at least that’s what the emails I’ve received in the last week indicate.
In more than one email came the question, “What gear did you leave at home to take all the gear to shoot your panos?” Actually, I own no pano gear any longer, got rid of it years and years ago because the assembly of panos is so simple. You can see above the three individual images used to create the pano at the top. I literally grabbed my D5 / 24-70VR and walked out to the balcony of our room at O’Reilly’s and clicked them off. I then opened them up in Photoshop and since they are Nefs, they opened first in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw). I then selected the three files, then selected Merge Pano and I was done. You’re probably wondering what about a tripod and pano head? Used none, shot handheld. What about the overlap? Ya, there is some but that was dedicated by the pano not the assembly. What about unwanted items? We’re in Photoshop, answer that question? The bottom line is, our vision takes in much more than our cameras in one click. The times when this translates to a pano that we can plan on in advance are far and few, so we take them on the fly. That’s what makes today’s technology so cool, we can have fun and take advantage of the spontaneity of the moment to make the pano. And that’s really important because we need to use the pano to tell stories.
Aug 19, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
Ghosting is an old term when it comes to wildlife photography. It refers to when there are two “images” of the subject in one frame. It is caused when shooting with flash using an shutter speed too slow so it captures the ambient light exposure of the subject along with the frozen image captured by the flash. The rule of thumb is, a subject has to appear in the frame for 1/4 of the exposure time to register (100% to be captured completely). Now I’ve used ghosting creatively for wildlife for a long time. Prime example is to illustrate the drilling action of a woodpecker. Here’ in the rainforest at O’Reilly’s, I’ve been trying it to communicate the activity of some of the birds, like this Eastern Yellow Robin. They are such a delightful little bird, but all so busy. In this case, shooting with the D5 / 300PF / SB-5000, I used ghosting to show its constant activity as it flits about the forest. Is it perfect? Na, I’m still working on it as it’s not an exact science as the light levels are constantly changing in the forest. But I keep working on it because otherwise, I’ll never get it perfect, or close to. But I do like using ghosting as an effect.
