Alvin Jr!

Aug 9, 2018 | Wildlife Photography

Allen’s Hummingbird
captured by D5 / 180-400VR

It started long ago, a tradition from back in film days and thankfully it’s continued this summer. Alvin Sr. is an Allen’s Hummingbird and at the end of most summers, fledgling Allen’s come to our feeders in good numbers. But not every year do we have ones with the character of the original Alvin. This year’s crop of hummers have been a bit funny, I think in part because of the heavy days of wildfire smoke and our warmer temps. Things started to settle down this past week and when it was all done, well, there was Alvin Jr! He’s quite a character even chasing the Mtn Chickadees that come near “his” feeders. Finally, I got some Alvin time in and he’s a hoot to work with!

Allen’s Hummingbird
captured by D5 / 180-400VR

With the smoke being the heaviest in the afternoons, I changed up my shooting to the AM. There is a small window of time when the light comes in and backlights the perch I’ve got stuck in a Justin Clamp. The piece of Manzanita that I select for the perch has to have its own character as well as be small in diameter. I then left my tripod set up in the location I will eventually place the camera rig so he could get used to it. He instantly perched on the tripod so the break-in period was short! With that, I just need to attach the rig and shoot.

I changed the rig up this year shooting with the D5 / 180-400VR (@560mm) rather than the 300PF in the past. I did this for a couple of reasons. First is I just used the 180-400VR at Madera Canyon with great success. Second is while the 300PF can focus a couple of feet closer than the 180-400VR it’s too close for the hummer’s comfort range. With the 180-400VR I have more focal length at that comfort distance and therefore a bigger image size.

The goal of my shooting Alvin Jr. is more a character portrait then inflight shot. This means I use natural light rather than setting up the SB-5000s which makes it easier. The only downside at this moment is I’m getting Alvin Jr. use to my presence so I’m shooting remotely. With the WR-R10, I’m standing back about 15′ from the rig and when Alvin Jr. comes in, I fire. But I know it’s Alvin Jr. cause like his predecessors, he seems to like to give me directions! mtc

Allen’s Hummingbird
captured by D5 / 180-400VR

The Elegant Trogan

Aug 1, 2018 | Wildlife Photography

Elegant Trogon
captured by D5 / 800mm

Back in 1988, we went on our first hunt for the Elegant Trogon. With Brent in a backpack on my back, in the cool of the morning, we hiked up that canyon. Far off in the distance, we could hear its call ever so faintly. Up we went along the trail but it eluded us that week, never ever getting a glance of it. It would be another thirteen years before I would get glass on one with only one click being somewhat decent. And so it would be until last month.

Elegant Trogon
captured by D5 / 800mm

The Elegant Trogon is a rare bird in North America where its northern range stops at Madera Canyon, SW Arizona. Over a foot long with a 16″ wingspan (big bird), its colors and rarity are what drives birders nuts trying to catch a glimpse of this gorgeous bird. Your best bet of finding them is in spring when the male’s loud call rings through the forest giving away its location. You would think a bird this big, this colorful would be easy to find in a forest. You’d be mistaken.

Elegant Trogon
captured by D5 / 800mm

Then we have this male who was disparately wanting to fall in love. It was late July and he was still seeking a mate, pathetically calling in the canyon nearly all day long. The call is a loose term as his call sounds like a dog bark more than any birdsong. It echoes through the canyon and when calling in your direction, you have no problem locating its source. This massive bird nests in abandoned woodpecker nests and when the female is within a short distance, he sticks first his head into the cavity and calls, then he gets in the cavity out of site and calls more. This male had two nesting sites to offer his potential mate. One in a telephone pole and the other in a more typical Sycamore tree.

Elegant Trogon (female)
captured by D5 / 800mm

By the end of the week, our male (I say that cause we were pulling for him to find love) finally seemed to have attracted a female to the area. She was calling back to him and on two occasions, we saw her come close to the proposed nest cavity. The male would fly up and down the canyon calling and the female would be a distance behind him. This elusive bird afforded us on two occasions opportunities to captured some clean shots but otherwise, it was just a dash of red and green as it flew through the canopy. I can say that at least after thirty years, I finally got glass (D5 / 800mm) on the Elegant Trogon!

Elegant Trogon
captured by D5 / 800mm

Move Your Photography Forward

Jul 20, 2018 | Wildlife Photography

Elegant Trogon
captured by D5 / 800mm

One of the biggest challenges in photography is measuring the success of our photographs both technically and most importantly, aesthetically. What I mean by that is, the vast majority of what we do there is no scale, an accepted public measure that we can quickly, easily and accurately measure the quality of our success. It’s all rather subjective. Those who live in the industry have such a scale but in many ways, this is a secret measure that’s summed up very simply in a check paying one for their efforts. But even in the days of film with it ridgedality that was relatively cut and dry this measure of success, helping a new photographer understanding what was sharp while looking through a loop on a light table was a helluva challenge. I by no means have any intent to suggest or force my scale of quality on anyone but rather, simply pass along just two things that my forty years of working with photobuyers has instilled in me that I personally attribute to my still making a living with my images.

American Redstart
D500 / 800mm

Back in the day of steam-powered cameras, we shot on this thing called film … ground up cow hooves with this thin layer of chemicals that got really excited when light struck it just right. In my case, it was 35mm in size being finally presented to the photobuyer encased in this circle of cardboard. There was just enough room on this cardboard to stamp your copyright and address. And you’d bundled up your precious gems up 20 to a page and sent them off with your prayers to the photo buyer hoping in return to get a nice check. You would use gloves and keemacs in prepping your slides, stamping them with care so the presentation was a perfect as you could make it. The last thing you would do would put silver tape on the cardboard mounts to suggest that the image should be cropped, it was dependent on you and assumed by the photobuyer that what they say within that cardboard frame was the complete visual story as you wanted to tell it. Not that at times your photo might not have been cropped in production to fit a cover or a layout. But you’re delivering a product to a client, what they saw in that cardboard frame was the final photo. At the same time what was contained within that cardboard frame was exposed to have the information needed in the entire range of the story correctly. This could only happen when you did it when you went click in the camera. There was no way of recovery after that fact.

Replacing today the finality of slide film and the words of wisdom of the photobuyer is digital and the internet. Where before you HAD to know when you went click you had the picture has been replaced often with learning how you can recover it in post. Where you have the professional helping you learn if your photograph is telling a story are simply Likes. Likes from others often is a befuddlement as to a measure of success or not. There are no true words of advice here, there is no technical help or words of wisdom other then to suggest that our measure of success must be higher if we are to move photography as a whole to a higher plane. A plane were rather than tearing down one’s photo, we use measures as a place to help each other improve where the technical is secondary and not a primary tool to measure with. It’s only then that photography can truly measure up to its true calling, telling the stories of this marvelous world we are all so fortunate to witness with other less fortunate. To enlighten all to a better plane. I would simply like to see us moving the quality slider moved forward!