PANORANIMALS
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Roly Poly
It seemed easy enough…
I read about the new polar bear cub at the zoo and immediately decided to go while he was still in the “cute” stage. Didn’t know what to expect but figured it’d be relatively simple to get a few “aw” pictures. The only special game plan was to wait for a snow day.
Perfect.
A snowstorm arrived in a few days and as I worked my way through morning rush hour, clichés of “shooting fish in a barrel…” rang in my ears.
Slightly mistaken.
There were two viewing areas. One from behind a barrier and chain link fence – not gonna work. The second was a half-enclosed shelter with glass - but only five meters wide for an overflowing crowd of families.
The challenge.
- The glass was covered with condensation on both sides from all the warm bodies making it difficult to focus.
- There were dozens of kids plastered against it scrambling for a view and parents with strollers packed in behind them. I didn’t want to hit anyone swinging around 20 pounds of camera nor get in the way of them enjoying the cub.
- The storm brought a cold snap and I’m a wimp when it comes to numb fingers, metal objects, little buttons, and fingerless gloves.
Eventually.
I contorted myself into a corner and with the sounds of kids laughing and cheering at the baby bear’s antics, settled in for one of the more enjoyable shoots I’ve done.
… Not as easy as planned but more fun than I expected.
Swangels
This is a composite of a male trumpeter swan photographed during a snowstorm in late March. He and his mate were migrating north when they chose to wait out the storm on our pond in Tottenham, Ontario.
That morning, I was surprised to see a pair of swans mixed in with the usual collection of geese and ducks that hang out in our open water. I quickly layered up, donned my waders and headed out, hoping I could get into position without scaring away the newcomers.
I snuck up the creek to the dam under our bridge and hunkered down to get an eye-level view of the birds as they cruised around the pond, feeding and resting. The bridge protected me from the snow but the water, of course, was ice cold and my waders had a slow leak. So I’d shoot until my boots filled with water, sneak back inside to dry out, warm up, recharge camera batteries, and then sneak back out for another session. This lasted until the storm cleared in the afternoon and they flew off.
The female was tagged and we later learned that she was a three year old released in Stratford, Ontario and spent her summers on Wye Marsh just north of us. She’d also been spotted several times in other area lakes.
It was a great day of shooting and I knew I’d captured some memorable images but I had no idea just how lucky I’d been; the combination of snowstorm, diffused lighting, and super-telephoto lens created a unique effect that looked more painterly than photographic, giving them an angelic appearance.
BLACK GOLD
I spent the better part of May sunsets haunting a marsh along my route home from work. I originally attempted to get mostly red-winged blackbirds flying among the cattails but I’m a cheap date and pretty soon was shooting anything that moved.
The grackles were great. They’re not as “popular” as red wings but were a bit slower which helped in my effort to get long sequences of flight.
TRIP THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
It began as a study of isolation.
Amongst the tens of thousands of snow geese there stood, one, lone sandhill crane. There were hundreds of other cranes on the pond but most were grouped together along the edge of the sea of geese.
Somehow this gal got stranded in the middle. The sandhills were already on the pond when the geese flew in. And when the geese come they arrive all at once and blanket the pond in a matter of seconds. So it’s likely that this crane was just caught off guard and when the feathers settled she found herself surrounded.
It was an interesting juxtaposition. I shot a single frame with the crane centered and then recorded a few frames on either side imagining I would combine them into a panorama.
Then she slowly began to move, picking her way through and high stepping over the congestion of geese. Gradually she broke into a trot, which became a run, and turned into a take-off as I merrily tracked along with her.
It became a study in motion.sandhill cranessnow geesesnowgeesebosque del apachemistfogflightflyingtaking off
SUPER MOONSTRUCK
It’s not what you may think…
It’s not the sun.
It’s not just the moon; it’s the supermoon. Okay, technically it was the night after the super-full-moon.
It’s not the traditional island-view of Toronto we’re used to seeing. It was shot from 60K north of downtown in Caledon, using 840mm worth of lens.
It’s not a cheat. The moon appears huge because: Obviously, the farther away, the smaller the city appears. But as I used a super-telephoto lens, downtown appears large in frame. And since the moon stays relatively the same size no matter where you are, and because during that “super” cycle it was roughly 13% larger, it appeared huuuge compared to the buildings.
It’s not a comp. I didn’t move anything. This was the moon’s actual trajectory. That strange howl you might’ve heard that night, downtown? That was me whooping when I saw it passing perfectly behind the CN Tower. Photoshop was used only to stitch the sequence together.
It wasn’t (just) luck. I used an “app” (LightTrac) to determine when and where to position myself.
It was lucky:
- That I had access to the perfect viewing location.
- That the horizon was free of cloud-cover yet cloudy enough overhead to add interest as the moon peeked in and out of view. (The night of the supermoon it was completely clouded at the horizon and only clear well above the skyline.)
And, it was lucky that everything came together perfectly.
FRESH PAINT
Lucky us.
In June, on three separate occasions, we were fortunate to witness three painted turtles laying eggs along the bank of the pond. We marked the areas hoping to see them hatch. But even with three nests, it was a long shot that we’d spot the loonie-sized offspring emerge and work their way through the grass to the water.
But the odds were with us. Not only did Terrie notice the tiny ground breaking disturbances of the first and second nests hatching – both birthings happened on weekends when I was home with the camera to capture the moments.
Two out of three – not bad.
The Hassle
If you ask me, the redwing blackbirds had no right to harass the trumpeters. The swans were just passing by the bird’s nest area on their way to their own nest when the irate parents began dive bombing them and landing on their tails. They never attacked the cygnets and the adults were certainly not in any real danger. It just seemed like a case of blackbird bullying.
trumpeterswanredwingredwingedred wingblackbirdswaterlandinghasslecygnetsfunny
The Great Blue Yonder
Scootching made this shot possible.
It’s often the case when I wake in the morning that I’ll look out from the bedroom window and see a heron on the pond. And as much as I’d like to go out to shoot I know from multiple past experiences that it’s almost impossible to get out there close enough to get a shot without spooking them.
But occasionally there are two herons, which means there’s a chance that something interesting can happen between them as they jockey around the pond for territorial position. And while they distract each other there’s a chance they might not notice a big guy with a huge lens sneaking towards them.
There wasn’t time to change so I just donned my camo hat and went out in my pajamas. I sat on my butt behind the camera and scootched forward along the wet grass whenever they weren’t looking. It took me a half an hour to work my way down the exposed hillside to the edge of the pond - a distance of a mere 60 feet.
I finally reached the cover of the tall grass along the pond edge and from that vantage caught this sequence of one heron crossing to get away from the other.
Then again, perhaps it was the pajamas.
SPEEDO
This is a composite – what I call a Panoranimal. However, unlike most of my digitally stitched works that are sequential frames of action, this composite was made from three separate dives. Same bird. Same location. Different dives.
Second:
We’re lucky in that we have kingfishers that fish on our pond. So, four summers ago I placed two tall dead branches over a narrow, shallow channel. The location was the perfect distance from my shooting blind for me to capture full frame images of the birds when they perched.
Coincidentally it turned out to be a good fishing spot and I witnessed lots of activity. At first I was happy just to get shots of them sitting on the branches eyeballing their prey below or preening after they returned from a dive. I also got nice shots of them with their catch, repeatedly slapping them against the wood to finish the kill (or soften the bones?). Even got a picture of one flipping it into his mouth with the fish suspended mid air directly above his throat.
But the kings were always too fast for me to capture a complete series of them diving. Consider what is involved: I had to anticipate their start, then follow them darting straight down twelve feet in a second, hitting a different target location every time, while keeping them in focus and in frame – a frame BTW that was barely big enough to accommodate them with their wings fully extended.
I made numerous attempts every summer. I slowly got better. The cameras eventually got faster. Until one weekend while a persistent kingfisher was making repeated unsuccessful dives I captured enough sequences to complete the shot.
At last.
Touch & Go
This is a three-image composite of a great blue heron as it was taking off from the pond.
A Blush of Cardinals
It’s sad when I have a good shot that’s missing a piece of the puzzle that would’ve made it a great shot- too good to toss - not good enough to do anything with. I have hundreds of them.
The “ …make lemonade” technique.
We had a major ice storm just before Christmas in 2013 that shut down parts of Ontario for several days. To pass the powerless time I shot around the feeder trying to capture high speed images of the birds in flight displaying their wings against a snowy background.
The chickadees were the most plentiful so I positioned myself close enough to get good detail yet wide enough to keep them in frame as I tracked with them speeding to and from the feeder. My technique yielded several good shots.
The cardinals were much fewer in number - slower and easier to track, but because of my proximity to the feeder the framing was tighter. As a result, in many shots the composition was poor or they were partially cut off.
That was the case in this sequence of shots where I caught the female rising up and about to land on an off-screen perch. Individually they each had a certain beauty but none were good enough to stand on their own.
It wasn’t until the following August while browsing through my good-not-greats that I happened across these again and solved the puzzle.
Winter Friends
Halting Beauty
Just one more and then I’m done.
One more sighting. One more opportunity. One more shot. One more and I’m done for the session. Done for the day. Done for the trip.
I’ve told myself those lies countless times but I can never seem to settle for just one more. Call it patience, determination, greed, whatever – I end up staying until I run out of subject matter, time, memory, power, daylight, or they kick me out of the park.
But not this time.
It was last light of day. There were several pairs of cardinals using the feeder. They would chase each other away as needed but each was getting their fill – except me. I hadn’t gotten a good shot all afternoon.
Now it was getting dark and I was pushing the limit of acceptable image quality. Fingers were frozen and batteries were running low. I told myself I’d leave just as soon as the next cardinal flew into frame, regardless if it was a good shot, just as long as there was at least a feather visible.
As soon as I saw her leave the branch I started shooting. Held the trigger down until she landed, grabbed a seed and flew off. I’d caught a glimpse of her in the viewfinder so I knew I had something but didn’t dare glance at the screen to review. I got up, stiff from the cold and sitting too long, grabbed my gear and headed in for the night.
Jackpot! I’ll never lie again...
...honest
POUNCIN’ AROUND
Sometimes I learn the hard way.
I was positioned on a hillside, shooting elk in this meadow, when I decided to have a quick look around the bend of the hill. Well, one bend led to another until I found myself about 50 meters away from where I’d left my camera set up – when I spotted what I thought might be a wolf moving through the tall grass.
I raced back, berating myself along the way, and sure enough by the time I returned, what would have been a full frame shot had become much wider and getting more so by the second. It turned out to be a coyote. He was pouncing in and out of view, as he worked his way quickly across the clearing. A few camera clicks later he disappeared into the tree line.
I learned a valuable but what should have been an obvious lesson that morning;
Always take the camera.
Up and Away
Tens of thousands of snow geese, sandhill cranes, and ducks make Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico their winter home. It is one of the premier bird viewing areas in the world.
This is what I called the second staging pond. Shortly before dawn the geese would leave the two larger ponds in the middle of the refuge where they had spent the night and would congregate on this, outlying, smaller pond. Then just after sunrise they would leave en masse to spend the day in the cultivated feeding fields. In the afternoon, they reversed their routine, stopping off again at this pond to preen and rest before heading back to the two larger ponds for the night.
After a few days, I figured out their schedule and would follow and/or precede the flocks to try and get shots of them landing and taking flight. My tracking efforts were rewarded late one afternoon when I got this wonderful panning sequence of them blasting off as they headed back to the main ponds.
The final image is a composite of five sequential frames.
Winter Wings
From EVERYTHING
ABOVE THE CAULDRON
It suddenly dawned on me after a half hour of shooting, that the beautiful mist enveloping the birds on the pond had not been there before they arrived. It was so cold and there were so many thousands of warm-bodied, heavy breathing snow geese and sandhill cranes, they were generating their own fog.
This was what I called the second staging pond; after the geese left the two larger ponds in the middle of the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge, they would all congregate on this, outlying, relatively smaller pond and leave just after sunrise for the feeding fields. When they left they would blast off en masse, sounding like the roar of a jet, and creating a disturbance in the air that you could feel as they passed directly over.From EVERYTHING
Morning Breath
The herons and the geese were arriving earlier every morning. So to avoid having to wake up in the dark to get into position in the island hunting blind and sit for an hour before they showed up, I decided to sleep overnight in the blind.
The bad news.
It was cold. Despite several layers and a good sleeping bag, it was a restless night. Twice I got up to put on more layers. Then a heron landed next to the tent and let out a huge croak. Finally, a big tail slap from a nearby beaver woke me, no doubt upset by the roar of my snoring.
The good news.
It got colder. When morning sunlight hit the chilled water it created a mist. And when
the geese landed in this fog, breathing hard from flying, I was able to capture their warm, puffs of
breath, backlit by the sunrise in the frigid morning air.
Cool.
RISE & SHINE
Another one of those shots that was supposed to be a shot of something else.
A new family of geese had spent the night on the pond and I was out before sunup to try for pictures. I couldn’t get very close because they were already on the water so I just settled into the opposite side of the pond under the cover of some camo material and shot them as they fed back and forth along the far bank.
It was a busy morning; first a couple mallards, then the kingfisher, some mergansers, and finally my favorite - wood ducks. Their colouring is amazing. It is so vibrant, so crisp and detailed, that it appears to be painted on. They’re skittish but they didn’t see me undercover so I was able to get several good shots of them cruising the pond. I shifted my focus to one who had wandered off by himself to feed along the edge. Suddenly the sunlight broke through the trees and he lit up like neon. I started blasting away. Then something spooked him and I could tell he was about to take off. No matter how much I anticipate it’s always tricky to keep up with birds launching off the water. I was lucky this time to get three shots off while keeping him in frame.
The goose family only stayed the day and then moved on up stream but seeing as how it was the first goslings we’d ever had, I took it as a sign of good things to come.
Algonquin Family
From EVERYTHING
Gooselight
The herons and the geese were arriving earlier every morning. To avoid having to wake up in the dark to get into position in the island hunting blind, and sit on a stool for an hour before they showed up, I decided to sleep overnight in the blind.
The bad news was that it was cold. Despite several layers and a good sleeping bag, it was a restless night. Twice I got up to put on more layers. Then the heron landed and let out a loud croak twenty feet away. And finally a big tail slap from a nearby beaver woke me, no doubt upset by the roar of my snoring.
But the good news was also that it was cold. Because when the morning sunlight hit the chilled
water, it created a beautiful mist. And when the geese landed in this fog, breathing hard from flying,
I was able to capture their warm, puffs of breath, backlit by the sunrise in the frigid morning air.
Cool.
AMBLIN’
Finally.
I spent a week in Algonquin Park in the Fall hoping for a good moose shot. Although the number of moose was apparently up, the number of sightings were definitely down. Park personnel, tourists, and other photographers, were all surprised by the poor showing. I did see moose and got pictures but nothing really special. I even stayed an extra day and left the park after sunset hoping for one last opportunity.
Two weeks later on a whim I drove back up just for the day to give it one more try. I arrived before sunrise and spent the entire day searching. I checked with anyone I ran into for reported sightings, hiked the trails, hid along the shore, and tried making moose calls.
Nothing.
As the sun was setting, I said goodbye to a group of photographers who were staking out a likely spot and headed for the road hoping I might catch something on my way out of the park. I was nearing the exit, the light was gone and I was planning dinner, when up ahead I saw the unmistakable dark form of a big bull lumbering along the edge of the woods heading for cover.
I pulled over and jumped out, grabbed my gear and raced to set up before he disappeared. There was a cow and young bull ahead of him that had already reached the distant trees. They would’ve vanished into the dark but they ended up on a path that led them back toward me and what little light was left. My moose luck had changed.
About time.
NIGHT VISION
Fireflies, Summer Solstice.
firefliessummergrassnight photographyorbslightning bugs
From EVERYTHING
DAWN
The first time I witnessed the snow geese arriving I didn’t know where to begin to shoot. Thirty thousand birds landing en masse, squawking, flapping, and settling down on this huge pond in just a little over five minutes is a lot to take in. How do you pick a shot out from all that? How do you capture the frenzy as well as the calm with so much to choose from across such a wide expanse?
Fortunately, it was a routine that they repeated daily during their winter stay at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico. It gave me plenty of practice and by the end of my first week there I’d found the rhythm and figured out my approach.
DAWN was taken several minutes after the mass landing frenzy as the stragglers caught up with the rest of the flock. The cold temps combined with the warm bodies and the sun hitting the frigid water as it cleared the distant mountains, created a beautiful misty backdrop for their graceful winged poses.
The field of action was seventy meters distant so I swept across the pond with my 600mm and stitched the results into this panoranimal. Other than that, nothing was done to alter the image. The morning light, atmospheric distortion, and slow shutter speed, naturally combined to give it a painterly look.
Goose Down
There were thousands to choose from.
Just before sunset in the Bosque del Apache Refuge, the snow geese begin to work their way from the planted, feeding fields at the outskirts of the refuge back to the central several acre pond where they’ll sped the night. They’ll do it with a couple predictable stops in between so photographers like myself setup to try and snag some sunset lighting of them landing and launching.
This was my second year visit to the refuge and I knew I wanted to do some composites. The challenge was to capture as many sequences of incoming with the hope that one of them would be the right combination of lighting, focus, action, and full frame birds with nothing clipped off. You’d think with tens of thousands of snow geese I’d have a plethora (love that word) of images to choose from. But they come in fast, they’re overlapping each other, there’s not a lot of light, it’s difficult to lock focus and hold it all the way down. I’m shooting through a lens that’s like a telescope so the slightest miscalculation in tracking throws them completely out of frame, and throw in the fact that I’m not exactly an expert at it … Well, you get the picture
So did I – but only one.
MIGRATION
From EVERYTHING
Flapanatomy
“There are no new ideas – only new ways of making them felt.” Audre Lorde
A male trumpeter swan and his mate were migrating north in late winter and chose to wait out a snowstorm on our pond. It was the first time we’d ever had swans.
I spent the entire day shooting and got some keeper images including this sequence of the male fanning his wings. At first, I was trying to decide which one to frame and then it dawned on me that I had a beautiful motion study. It reminded me of Muybridge’s studies from the late 1800s which I had often referenced in my work as an animator. But these swan shots were also stand alone, great images.
At first I arranged them side by side and had as many as six frames. Then the light bulb went off and I melded them into one.
Ever since then I’ve kept an eye out for “Muybridge moments.”
Mark. Set. Go.
It’s fun to photograph Chickadees. The other, bigger birds are always very wary around the feeders but not the little chickadees. They don’t care who’s around. They just want to eat and, if you’re in the way, they’ll just use you as an interim perch.
They’re so small and fast, you never get to see the beauty of their wing forms as you can in the larger birds like herons or swans.
So I baited a branch, set up the camera a few feet away, and focused on the food. They’d pop into frame and snatch some seed. Then I’d start shooting, as I panned ahead in the direction I “guessed” they might exit.
Tricky timing. At first I ended up with a lot of empty backgrounds and just bits of bird in view. But gradually I got good enough at reading chickadee body language to snag a few keepers, including these shots that I combined to show three stages of lift off.
Slinky Minky
SAILING ON GOSSAMER WAVES OF LIGHT
From EVERYTHING
FEEDING FRENZY
That spring I hauled several dead tree limbs on to the island so the birds could use them as perches. The results exceeded my expectations, because not only did we end up hosting a family of four kingfishers, but we also attracted a flock of cedar waxwings. Every morning and evening, about a dozen of them would gather on the branches and use them as a launch for their bug hunts around the island airways.
This is a composite of five images taken over a few minutes, one evening in July.
Feet First
I was surprised when I arrived at the site. I had been seeing full frame photos of puffins from this area, yet because of the lay of the land, there was no way that I could hope to get that close – even using my powerful, 600mm, super-telephoto lens.
Elliston, located on the Bonavista Peninsula of Newfoundland, is a popular destination for tourists seeking puffins because of its easy access to view the birds. The trail to the colony leads right to the edge of a steep cliff. Just beyond there is a series of sea stacks – pinnacles of sheer rock, plateaued on top and peppered with the burrows of thousands of puffins. But the chasm that separates visitors and the nearest nest is at least seventy-five feet. How did people get close-ups?
I asked around but none of the other photographers that were there could figure it out either.
I assumed there must be another location and decided to shoot where I was, then scout around for the better site. I settled onto the edge and began looking for interesting compositions of the birds congregating around their burrows. I noticed an area where they were launching and landing and tried to catch them at various stages of action. There was continuous wind from the sea that channeled up along the face of the cliffs. The puffins had an easy time taking off but the shifting updrafts made their landings a little tricky.
The situation was actually to my benefit; the stiff air currents pushed up at the birds as they tried to touch down slowing the action and allowing me to capture long sequences of the birds coming in for landing. It was one such sequence that became FEET FIRST.
I felt I’d exhausted the possibilities from my location, said goodbye to my fellow photogs, and hiked back to my vehicle. As I was starting to drive off I spotted a couple locals and inquired about getting better access. They said if people stayed back from the edge and gave the birds some space, eventually they would come over to the viewing ledge. Before they could finish speaking I parked, geared up, and was trotting back to spread the gospel.
Dive 3
A zodiac is the best way to see whales.
We were racing at high speed along the east coast of Newfoundland in a zodiac filled with a dozen people in search of a sperm whale. It was a relatively calm sea but 50 mph makes for a noisy, bumpy, wet, and exhilarating ride.
We'd seen "literally" tons of humpbacks and fin whales over the past few days and gotten lots of tail shots as they propelled themselves into deep dives, but sperm whales were not as common and it was exciting to hear that there was one somewhere in the area. It seemed like our chances were pretty slim, though. It could be anywhere and not just longitude/latitude wise but depth wise. And it could stay down for an hour so we could pass right over it and be none the wiser. Even if it was on the surface, blowing, it was a challenge to spot the spout up against the seemingly ever present fog.
We stopped for a humpback and were about to turn back because of heavy fog ahead when the spotter called it out - “sperm whale three o’clock!”
800 meters out, full speed ahead, the skipper calling out bearing and distance at every blow, ocean spray crashing over us, trying to get there before the dive, the bus shaped/sized head coming into view, it’s back arching downward in the telltale shape of the deep dive just as we arrived, the huge tail lifting up trailing a long, wide curtain of water until it was totally vertical, seeming to pause and then slipping into the waves … then gone.
What a great ride.
Spring Light
I spent the better part of May-sunsets haunting a marsh along my route home from work in search of the newly arrived red-winged blackbirds. I’d slip on my waders and venture out as far as I could, drape myself in camouflage, and settle in for a shooting session as they darted back and forth among the cattail tops before dropping down to their nests below.
I captured quite a few nice images and during the editing process realized I could combine them into this “panoraminal” – Spring Light.
INTO THE DARK
Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico.
I wanted to try for a different view of the sandhill cranes as they flew into the big pond for the evening so I’d left the crowd of photographers and set up at a nearby trail where the birds would pass over an opening in the tree canopy.
Well, it didn’t pan out and had gotten dark and I was about to leave when I spotted what I assumed was a coyote coming down the trail. But when I focused in I realized I was looking at a mountain lion.
Incredible luck. There’s always talk about the lions at the refuge but the sightings are rare. And here I was, all alone, in the cover of my car with the camera all set up, as a big cat slowly headed straight towards me.
It was one of those wonderful moments in the viewfinder that gets the adrenaline pumping. To add to that I was nervous - worried I would blow the shots; it was way dark, difficult to focus, and it was my first few days with a new camera and unfamiliar controls.
As he neared, the cat graciously turned to give me some profile time before disappearing into the bush. I sat there for a while in the quiet of the night soaking it all in. Then I raised the windows so no one would hear my whooping it up and headed back to town.
CARDINALS RULE
From EVERYTHING
From EVERYTHING
From EVERYTHING
EMERALD CASCADES
From EVERYTHING
EVENING PROMENADE
From EVERYTHING
INTO THE MYSTIC
It looked like a scene out of prehistoric times - huge, horned beasts ambling across a desolate landscape. As they grunted along, their clouds of breath mixed with the surrounding geyser plumes. The smell of sulfur from thermal springs filled the cold morning air. It was a small herd, moving steadily east. I followed them until the last silhouette disappeared into the mist.
Then they were gone and I realized I was standing alone in the middle of a cloud. I couldn’t see them but I could hear their grunting. I thought it best to leave and worked my way back west toward open sky and present day.From EVERYTHING
