Romancing the Gull

Jul 2, 2014 | Wildlife Photography

Watch a gull for five minutes and it will do something stupid. This old adage in wildlife photography can lead to some amazing photos. But few pay much attention to gulls. Why? Because they are so common. But when you start looking at the common and telling its story in an uncommon way, well, it just might lead to something amazing!

Wildlife photography requires the obvious gear, no getting around that. Then moving the ball forward requires understanding basic biology. Then to insert the romance requires thinking about the light and adding it to the rest of the mix. Shooting down in Florida this time of year, the afternoon thunderstorms are a thing of beauty! With a simple iPhone app like Radar Cast, you can watch the storms form and see the direction in which they are heading. With that, you put yourself in the right place at the right time and you come up with the shot. In this case, with simply the Df and 24-70AFS in hand, we headed to the pier where the storm would pass and where their are fisherman. And where there are fisherman there are gulls. The rest is simply putting the pieces together in the frame, the gulls, the clouds and the light.

Working in Sand

Jul 1, 2014 | Wildlife Photography

I’ve been receiving a whole bunch of questions about working in sand. Just to be clear, we’re talking taking pictures and not making sand castles since I love doing both. Having just spent time with photographers relatively new to shooting in sand, while it seems obvious it truly isn’t. This is how I do it to give you some ideas but by no means your only option for making it happen. The whole concept is based on getting down and into the sand to shoot. The shot above of the Marbled Godwit was taken with the gear laying literally in the sand and the angle of view being the same as the godwit. From this angle the background which is physically one hundreds or more yards away is a soft wash of color, the foreground a clean blur so all you see is the subject. While the godwit standing in shallow water, I’m shooting from the dry sand. That’s what this technique is all about.

by John Herrick

It all starts and really is all about the gear. Protecting he gear is pretty darn important because camera gear and sand just don’t play nicely together. What you see me shooting with here is the D4s / 800mm on the Panning Plate. The panning plate is resting in a Petco freebe, the same one I’ve used for over a decade. You can see how low to the ground it all is so the first thing you do is figure out the balance point of the rig so the lens hood and camera body don’t take a dip in the sand. Next, you become real annal to keep you hands out of the sand so it doesn’t get transferred onto the gear. Then finally when you get up, you are really, really, really careful you don’t do it standing over your gear as the sand will fall off you and onto your gear. Lastly, if you get any sand on your gear, don’t panic! Let the gear sit in the sand letting the sand completely dry out. If there is any moisture in the sand, it sticks like glue. Once it’s dry, “wipe” it off the gear with a dry, clean towel and if you have canned air, carefully blow it off. Whatever you do, don’t wipe the sand off. These are the basics of working in sand and as long as you remember sand goes with gravity, you’ll be just fine.

New Life

Jun 30, 2014 | Wildlife Photography

Sunday morning was simply, amazing! I was back in FL for the weekend and it found me at the Black Skimmer colony. New life is everywhere and watching it, hearing it and witnessing it is one of the great joys of wildlife photography. And the joys of wildlife photography continued when it was shared with so many other shooters. My dear friend Kathy and gang (Mike, Tony, Leslie and the rest of you) make me smile. Not just the kind words and open arms, but all the smiles you have as you too chase the critters with your lenses. There were 70-200, 80-400, 200-400, 600 and of course the 800 all trained on the adorable chicks peaking out at the big bad world for the first time. The whole experience for me simply brings to wildlife photography, new life!

I Hate Gum!

Jun 19, 2014 | Wildlife Photography

What’s the Subject?

Jun 17, 2014 | Wildlife Photography

“What’s the subject?” This is a question I’ve been asking photographers when helping them for the past three decades. Normally, this question has to do with the visual story we’re trying to tell, the technical issues we’re trying to concur and the finishing being done in post. The subject controls everything we do as photographers, from where we stand to lens we select to it’s success in grabbing the viewers imagination. Knowing what the subject is when it comes to bird photography takes on an additional meaning that I think is just as important. I offer up this example of what I’m talking about right here.

Now I’ve slightly manipulated my point here because you’re seeing the birds in the final photo. But to get to this point in the photograph, the majority of the time we see the off in the distance (they are smaller than a tennis ball). It’s from a distance we make the call whether we’re going to work a particular subject and with that decided, how we’re go about getting close physically to make the shot. What’s the subject or in this case the bird species, takes on a whole new meaning and importance when put in this context even though we’re still talking photography.

On the beaches of Florida you can find a number of Plover species, two from a distance are pretty similar, the Semi Palmated Plover and Wilson’s Plover. When they are holding still and have their head cocked as you see in the top two photos, they are incredibly similar. But once they go profile to you as you see in the lower two photos, the differences in the two species is quite clear at a distance. The bill lengths and shape of the two species is very distinctive at a distance. This is especially true when not looking through bins or you long lens (as normal, I was lying flat on the sand shooting with the D4s / 800mm on the Panning Plate.)

Why does any of this matter? It might not depending where you are in your photography. Both are great birds! The Semi Palmated Plover though is very common, being found throughout North America. The Wilson’s Plover on the other hand is anything but common. The Wilson’s being “rare” in some sense when I have the option of two species makes it the one I will focus in on because in theory, the Semi Palmated is easier to photograph elsewhere later on. Now in answering the question “What’s the Subject” knowing the species can make the difference of getting that rare shot. When it comes to just these two species, besides the bill there is one other thing that tells them apart, their biology! The Semi Palmated spends its time chasing sand flies, so it’s always on the move. The Wilson’s Plover eats small sand crabs. It freezes in one place watching them and then darts to catch its prey. One is always on the move the other is not. While “What’s the subject” is important to the photograph’s success, asking that question when it comes to birds, might just help you know which species is going to be the subject.