Working Bosque entails cruising the loops and making images happen. You can go around and around and around and never make a single click and then you find a bird T’d up just waiting for you. It’s the ultimate Easter Egg hunt. Today was one of those days when we just kept finding cool little surprises. In the process of making the image, setting up the tripod just isn’t possible, no time and no way to move around without scaring the subject. So shooting over the hood, handholding the 600mm is the only way to make the image. Here’s some example of today’s heavy lifting.
There’s one thing I think is very photography do, that’s stop and smell the roses. At Bosque, that translates to just watching life, that of the cranes, geese and all the other creatures, just unfold as the day begins or ends. Besides being incredibly good for the soul, taking in the flow helps your photography. I’ve been doing it from the get go in photography and it has always made me a little more grateful for that moment.
Here is a use for the D3s I hadn’t thought about until coming to Bosque. No matter how successful my photograph of Bosque life might be, there is one thing that will always be missing. That’s the sounds of flow of Bosque, something stills just can’t capture. So, here’s a simple, unedited D3s video for you to get a little sense of this amazing place.
Our third day of Base Camp Bosque was a killer! There’s no doubt the bird count is down but it only takes one bird to make my day. Today, I had that one bird a thousand times. I’m just partially through the 69GB of images and 4hrs of video shot today so I have to make a quick blog. I’m really likin shooting at f4 or in this case, f6.7. The shallow DOF and its isolating power is working for me. Here’s some of my favorite images from the day. Enjoy!
Flight photography is one of the coolest things to do in wildlife photography! It’s also a challenge in so many ways. This is the first challenge at Bosque, body parts.
Another challenge is getting a graceful “pose” in flight. What is graceful? Well to me it’s the angle of the wings opposed to the body angle and position. All I can tell you is that this is not a graceful.
Then there are those times when you get no body parts and you get a nice pose and good light only to have it all come together with a juvenile crane. What’s wrong with that? Well they don’t have the nice red patch over the eye or the slick, gray body plumage.
These are just some of the challenges of flight which can be overcome with just more time behind the camera, patience and a quick trigger finger. Of course, being in the right place to photograph cranes is required if you want flight shots of these graceful birds.
Photos captured by D3s, 600VR w/TC-17e on Lexar UDAM digital film
