1. PITTS GALLERY
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Ducking Ducklings
Mother mallard with her newborn ducklings on their first day on the pond.
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DANCE AT DAWN
Northern Exposure
Sooo cold. Fingers, toes, and face, numb.
Where the Mississippi River runs through Monticello, Minnesota, the water stays open even during coldest weather from the upstream nuclear power plant. When trumpeter swans were reintroduced there in 1986, Sheila Lawrence who lived nearby started a daily feeding ritual. What began as a few swans has turned into thousands. And what was once a few buckets worth of corn has become nearly a ton a day.
“The Swan Lady” passed away in 2011 but her husband continues the tradition. The area has become a mini park; a small lot between a couple houses, high above the feeding bank, fenced off so as not to disturb the birds below.
I arrived at the park before dawn to be ready for sunrise. The sky was perfectly clear and the mix of extreme cold air and relatively warm water was creating massive billows of mist. Combined with the high winds, it looked like an armada of clouds was blowing down the Mississippi.
There’s nothing better than swans floating through the mist in beautiful morning light.
I shot until I ran out of memory and the golden hour light was gone, along with my last reserves of body heat.
Headed back to the hotel to download and thaw.
The Conversation
Thunderbird
Winter Ghost
Winter Maneuvers
Little Leap
CHICKADEE
Winter Wings
INTO THIN AIR
It’s all about time.
One of my favourite "ppowers" of photography is its ability to stop time – to reveal what otherwise would be invisible to the naked eye.
It’s easy to see the beauty of wings on big birds like hawks or herons and such. When they’re launching, landing, or simply gliding past, they appear to move in slow motion and give you plenty of time to appreciate their elegant design and movement.
But the small guys are so fast you can never see what’s happening. They dart about and give you no opportunity to appreciate the subtle flexing and fans, the graceful lines, and the delicate translucency of their feathers – unless you freeze-frame it.
The challenge is that they are too fast to track and take off with too little warning.
My technique involved a little dose of skill and a large helping of luck:
I set up about 18 feet from the birdfeeder area - as close as I can focus using my 600mm lens. When a bird lands, I aim and focus, favouring a composition in the direction I’m guessing they’ll launch, then immediately begin rapid firing until the bird takes off.
- Most times they get the jump on me and I have empty frames.
- Some times they never launch and I end up with way too many perch pictures.
- Other times I catch the action but they fly out of my narrow range of focus.
This time I got lucky.
Turtle and the Fly
Newborn Snapper
TOUCH & GO
RHAPSODY IN BLUE
This is a panorama of fireflies taken at midnight. Fireflies are my all time favouritest insect.
It’s comprised of four, one-minute exposures taken using a 600mm telephoto lens from a distance of about 20 meters. I wanted the narrow depth of field and beautiful out of focus background (known as bokeh) that this lens creates. That bokeh also turned the distant fireflies into tiny orbs of light.
There were two challenges.
One was to focus at that distance in the dark using a filter covered flashlight.
The other was to stand out in the middle of the marsh in the sweltering, muggy, heat, holding still for long exposures so as not to shake the tripod on the boggy surface, while covered head to toe in bug-sprayed, clothing, head netting, and netted gloves to defend against my most dreaded of all, least favouritest insect…
the mosquito.
Little Dewdrops
Up on the Boardwalk
3 day old goslings on a foot bridge
Veiled Beauties
Zazu
TIPPING POINT
Raven at the Moon