Yeah, it’s just a Mallard Duck, a species you can find basically at every pond in North America. But when you can make the common, uncommon, then you turn heads and you can tell your visual story. In this sitution, it was the background that caught my attention and what drove the photograph. The reflection of sunrise, grass reeds on the left and blue sky on the right in the water as it swirled had me mezmorized as I looked at it through the viewfinder. It was then I scambled to put a subject on that stage and the closest bird was … a Mallard. Sure, I would have loved a Wood Duck but there were none and it was going to be a cool shot, of a Mallard. To bring out the tones in the water I overexposed +1/3. A side benefit of this was it brought up the colors in the drakes head. A downside was it slowed down my shutter speed a tad. To make up for that I went from f/11 to f/8 and while I would have liked more of the flank in focus, I wanted the photo. I just love the feel of that water! In the end, I am very pleased with the image it all works cause the background drove the shot!

Telling a story, as photographers are most potent tool is how we speak about the light. This is a Say’s Pheobe, a real common bird that often doesn’t feel the love from photographers. Common subjects often suffer from this. I was taught from the very first that there was money in the common is you spoke about it in an uncommon way (and that was such great advice, thanks Gary!) In this case, the Say’s Phoebe was on a perch in kinda bright light. As you can see, part of its body though was in shade from another part of the tree. By simply dialing in -07 exp comp, the overal brightness was brought down with what appears to be a spot light on the head. Now the common is uncommon. It’s pretty simple to accomplish, just gotta think about telling the story. The best part though is when talking about the Say’s Phoebe I get to use an old birder’s joke. Say what?

Our timing is perfect for the fall color on magnificent Caddo Lake. It’s not so good for migrating fall waterfowl. Either we are early or they are late, in either case their not in our viewfinder where we want them. It’s not like we hurting for subjects, but there is just something about spending time with critters. Stepping into the void is our best friend, the Great Blue Heron. They are present on a view of the boat channels, the ones lest traveled by the faster bass boats cause they don’t like the wakes. Hard to see prey with wakes lapping at their legs. So easing up on them is key in getting a shot. Being “common” I am always looking for the uncommon. And while I have a gazzilion image of them, I still don’t have enough. Handholding the Z 9 / Z600f4 TC (shooting at 840mm) we eased up on this individual. I wanted to get the fall color reflection behind it but because of submerged logs, we couldn’t get the boat over to the left far enough. I watched the GBH as we floated towards it and it was this moment it saw another GBH fly into “its” water to forage. It raised its crest as a sign of displeasure and before too long, flew off to warn of the intruder. While not the most amazing photo of a GBH, it’s always fun to spend time with a wildlife photographer’s best friend!