Feb 4, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
God bless Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets because they get more photographers into wildlife photographers than anything else! Being found in just about every nook and cranny of North America, who hasn’t photographed these graceful but dirt common subjects? I don’t think I have 1mil photos of the Great Egret, but I might be wrong. So when you’re confronted with taking picture 1mil and one, what do you do? Well, I tend to get really picky and push things a little. What’s pushing it? In the top photo, not a thing! I have a Great Egret in a nice little shaft of light, it goes with the other thousands like that which I have in my files.But this lone egret won’t be alone for long.
Now, I’m not a “raise the ISO” when the light levels drop kinda shooter. So to answer the 1mil challenge, I use the old fashion approach, watch for peak of action and shoot. Shooting with the D4 with 600VR2 with TC-20e3, I focused on the single egret waiting for the mate to comeback. The small shaft of light is slowly fading when the mate returns. He (I assume it’s him) shows up with a twig, makes the presentation and the displaying begins. I simply watch with my finger half way depressing the shutter release so I can shot in a heartbeat. When the wings spread, I watch the head and when it stops its travel, I go click. Na, not some amazing photo but rather, a way to meet the challenge of 1mil and push you photography forward. I’m constantly looking for a way to meet the challenge and of course, win. It’s what pushes my photography.
Feb 4, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
Light is the element we all have in common and what we seek in our photos to distinguish them from the next. Is there a place you can go and know that light will be good, like a guarantee? I think there are many one are the sands of Fort DeSoto prior to sunrise. When the sun has yet to kiss the heavens, the little light that is present bounces off the sand which does such a great job at filling in the slight shadow. That is, if you’re down on the sand at their level.
Lying on the sand with the D4 with 600VR2 in a panning plate, we can take advantage of the light with our subjects. Now we get down low to not minimize but BLOW AWAY the background! With the very soft light and soft pastel colors, I big part of the photographic challenge is accomplished, but it’s not everything!
The top photo is your basic shot and while the light and being down low make it a nice shot, we can do much better. Plying the clock, we give the birds in this case the Willets, time to get use to our presence and with that comes more poses. These poses can have attitude in them that along with the light bring a little uncommon to the common. I like that. Then when you wait for after they take their nap and the wake up, you have the opportunity to get an even more uncommon pose. In this case, after waking and preening, the Willet scratched its head. You can see how shallow the DOF is at f/5.6 but that’s perfect because just what I want sharp is sharp. There is something special about greeting dawn’s first light and often, you’ll see it in your photographs if you go looking for it.
Jan 28, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
Wildlife photography is just like Christmas morning quite often. You find that great subject and just like a kid on Christmas morning you just start wrippin and in the end, you have just the one present. The problem is the leftover pile of paper you have to clean up afterwards. The problem though for the wildlife photographer, all that wrippin really kills the great photo as you dig through all those images you have to delete afterwards! I understand all to well the excitement of seeing that gorgeous subject that you’ve never photographed it before and you just start clicking. I seen that happen with every subject on the plant by excited photographers and that’s just damn cool! That excitement will take you photography a long ways down the road! The problem with it though is it instills really bad photographic habits! Be vary, vary picky. Go into what I call sniper mode, get the one shot!
The top photograph is the first picture I took when we came up to this Spoonbill at Fort DeSoto. It was early morning so one knows that as the day gets older, the light gets harder. So wanting to take advantage of what you think is the best light, you shoot a lot trying to get the shot. What you have to do is take a deep breath and think the PHOTOGRAPH through. I’m much happier with the one clean shot then a thousand shots showing I can push a button (that you have to edit through later). In this case, the foreground and background are nasty. NASTY! The tide is out so lots of muck is coming through in the photo taking away from the beauty of the Spoonbill. Shooting with the D4 with 600VR2 with TC-20e3 and knowing the tide was coming in, waiting made sense to make the better photo. I’ll let the rising tide not only remove the busy foreground and background, but give me a reflection to work with. At the same time, the harder light will increase the contrast making those elements disappear even more. Finally, staying longer, the Spoonbill got use to my presence so would come closer. Yes, knowing all of this takes times in the field shooting. And learning not to astro blast through you excitement was learned easier when we shot film not digital because throwing away all those rolls of film really brings the point home. But I’m going to encourage you to be vary, vary picky!
Jan 24, 2013 | Landscape Photography
In the spring in FL, there is a species I seek out, the Double-crested Cormorant. A species that normally is about as ugly as the bird world has to offer up, comes to life in the breeding season. It’s plumage and especially the flesh around the male’s eye just ballistic with great colors even if just in the shades of black and blue. At the same time, it’s a Double-crested Cormorant! When you have though a basic color overall with a splash of color contrast and you use focus to select it, you can have your cake and eat it too. Shooting still with the D4 with 600VR2 with TC-20e3, this male on a lone perch could be optically selected and then it’s start of breeding plumage to the rest. Then with a dabble of light kissed it, well, it was a good afternoon to stand and watch the rookery.
Jan 24, 2013 | Landscape Photography
Birds on a wire, it’s just never been my thing. There is nothing wrong with it, it’s just as you know, I’m picky about perches and wire just doesn’t cut it. With that said, when you have an opportunity, do you pass it up just because you’re picky? In this case, this sweet Broad-winged Hawk was having a great time harassing the ibis at a rookery. No way it would take one, it just seemed like it was flying about making them flush just because it could. I watched it with a huge smile. Then it landed on this wire. I’d not photographed a Broad-winged for a long time, since film days! So when I have an opportunity to update my digital files with a new species, I’m off to the races!
Sadly, the hawk loved wires for perches so that was my only option. Using the D4 with 600VR2 with TC-20e3 I walked around so the light was on my back to get a shot. The little guy was funny as hell as it tried to keep it balance. I shot a video I need to post as I expected any moment for it to do a 360 spinning on the wire. But then it flew only to land on another perch. This one at least had a background better than gray skies. While not a killer shot and while on a wire, I have digital files now of the Broad-winged Hawk. Even better is a have a video that on a slow day in the office I can watch that will make me smile. What else can you ask for in life!
Jan 23, 2013 | Landscape Photography
Another way to win the uncommon challenge is knowing a little bit about your subject and waiting for the uncommon to appear in your viewfinder. Here a Royal Tern is busy preening and in that process will eventual get to the last two shots. To make this happen, you first get the physical distance you need to get to get the image size you want. Next, you look at the position of the subject in the frame leaving room for the hoped behavior to occur and not get clipped by the frame. Finally, watch for the behavior and when you see it coming, lay on the hammer and file some frames. The love the last two frames and that’s what I was after. The soft light, the white, black and orange and the shape of that bill all make what I love about Royal Terns. So another way to win the uncommon challenge is not only knowing your subject, but having a passion for it.
