Jul 11, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
The silhouette is a dramatic and romantic way to tell a story about your subject. But just like everything else in communicating, the amount you say helps the viewer understand the story. The silhouette is by its very natural a dramatic image because of the character of the light. The most common silhouette comes in the early morning or late evening when we can so easily take advantage with its color. You can suck in everyone to look at your photograph with that red (make sure you’re shooting in Cloudy WB). We all are drawn to red so in using that you’ve done the easy part, grabbed the viewer’s attention. The hard part is telling the story once you’ve got their attention. That’s where knowing how much silhouette you need in the photograph. What we’re competing with are folk’s life experiences and perceived ideas. For example, a palm tree, everyone knows that shape so you don’t have to show that much for all to relate to the shape as being a palm tree. When you use something more obscure like in this photo of Pronghorn, you need to show more so the public can relate. So how much do you need? The answer comes from your understanding how recognizable the subject is in silhouette form. The more recognizable the less your can show, the less recognizable the more you show. Then again, mystery taps the imagination and that is always a good thing too!
Jun 24, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
I was down on the flats shooting the Swallows on a gorgeous morning. Off in the distance is home, the Sierra Mountains, still snow capped and in that filtered light – simply gorgeous. Then up the river I see a White Pelican lift off the water. I throw the D500 / 300PF up to my eye, gently touch the shutter release activating the AF system (in Auto Area AF), the system locked on and I let it rip, and rip, and rip and rip hoping the Pelican’s flight path would put it in front of our home.
There was no way to know if the Pelican’s flight path would take it with the background I wanted when it first lifted off. If I waited to put the camera up to my eye once I saw the background, by the time the camera locked on and I took the photo, there is a good chance that the background would be loss. So shooting the D5 or in this case, the D500 with that basically unlimited buffer, I let ‘er rip! As you can see, there are 102 shots from this series from lift off to the rude butt shot (that’s a lot of sharp images!). Now this kind of photography, of just letting ‘er rip is a luxury, wasn’t that long ago that wasn’t an option. Now while not the greatest photograph, to me, seeing this cool bird over our home makes it special. Having gear that can capture special memories is important since photography is all about memories. Cause it’s not every day you see White Pelicans over snow!
Jun 10, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
Read and Ponder, YOU might be the answer!
May 27, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
Spring has sprung on the property and Sharon’s favorite birds have come back. We have two distinct populations of Evening Grosbeaks, winter and summer. This migratory species ranges over most of North America and Mexico with our winter Grosbeaks coming south from Canada, stopping at our feeders and our summer Grosbeaks coming up from the south to stop at our feeders. Sharon carefully notes their comings and goings over the years and so looks forward to the summer population since they are so active and noisy!
We were in our home for years before we first saw the Evening Grosbeak on the property. We’d seen them in the Sierra but not around our feeders. Then eighteen years ago the first one arrived in May. Couldn’t move one foot in the house without flushing them. They are incredibly shy! Then none over the winter until the following May when we had a couple of Grosbeaks. The summer population slowly grew overs the years and then about seven years ago, the winter population showed up. This past winter, we had a continual flock of about thirty Grosbeaks and this summer, well we can’t count all the Grosbeaks in all the feeders. It’s so much fun to see all the yellow in the trees and darting around the property. That’s a long winded story about the photos you see here taken yesterday.
Last year we saw the Grosbeaks one day go to the tops of our leafing out aspens and start striping it of its new buds. We were horrified cause we thought we’d soon have bare trees! We were totally confused cause these are seed eating birds. We watched and watched and after a short time, they flew from the aspens which as the summer unfolded had the best growth ever. Still don’t understand what’s going on there, interesting biology. Well this morning, we saw the Grosbeaks leave the feeders and head up into the apsens so I grabbed the camera to photograph the action.
What you see here are the males who are watching the females (spring love) and the females who are eating the leaf buds. It was a good day to photograph this biology as we had a good cloud cover – soft, saturated light. The best part was when I stepped out on the deck to shoot. As I stood there, the other Evening Grosbeaks kept coming into the seed feeder five feet in front of me and the bird bath one foot from me as if I didn’t exist. Such a change from decades ago and it’s such fun! It’s one of the greatest benefits of having a shooting gallery in your own backyard (want to get started, here’s a class on backyard bird photography). You can see and photograph so easily all that great biology with ease. I enjoy it this time of year especially as the Evening love cranks up!
May 26, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
On my last two week bird road trip, I photographed 42 species of birds, 23 were new to my files. It was a great trip! Now I saw some gorgeous birds, some rare birds, some weird birds and lots of birds but the one that was the real joy to photograph was this Bobolink. Why? I’ve been seeing Bobolinks on wires for two decades. I have many times stalked a Bobolink, had them in the viewfinder but for every possible reason, I had never got one click of one. Not a rare bird, not an incredibly cool looking bird but for me, one of those birds I’ve always wanted only because of the challenge of getting the shot. And this trip I got one in the viewfinder, I lucked out with a clean background and nice light (not great light though) and made the click. What’s the point? No matter where you are in your wildlife photography, having a critter in your sites, preferably a “common” one that you want that nice photo of drives you to get out and get that photograph. You might not get the shot of the bird you’re after, but you will photograph birds and therefore hone your skills. It’s a fun thing to do, a great challenge, a simple pleasure especially when you score!
Update – the chase is still on! This is a Lark Bunting and not a Bobolink. Hot dogs!
May 11, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
I’m up at Magee Marsh, OH and even with 55 degree temps and the sky spitting at me, the sound of spring is everywhere! Jake had come up here a couple of years back and said, “Dad, you gotta go” and so I’m here. He was so right! Had a marvelous day in this new Shang-ra-la seeing some gorgeous birds sing the blessings of spring. What a day!
What species did I see? Lost track to be honest with you. Spent a heck of a lot of time with Yellow Warblers (top photo) cause even though common in my backyard, these are wearing their spring best and singing up a storm and point blank range. I had really good birds as well like this Prothonotary Warbler which stuck around for quite a while. With these small subjects and travel being restricted to a boardwalk, I went out with the big gun, D5 / 800mm. With the over saturated light, shot with no flash, at zero exposure comp. Only out the ordinary thing I did was raise the ISO to 400. What a great experience … loved it!
