EVERYTHING
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Winter Wings
INTO THIN AIR
It’s all about time.
One of my favourite "powers" 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
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
WARY
VEILED BLUE
Zazu
Raven at the Moon
BIG DREAMS
Someday …
Normally, if the mother mallard suspects that I might be in my island blind, she keeps her distance. She will feed her chicks around the perimeter and swim past freely but she would never land anywhere near the blind.
But this season, I think mom was a repeat customer. Ducks pretty much all look the same but when I checked previous year’s photos it looked like she had similar markings. And I believe she knew she’d be safer near us in case of predators.
Indeed, we’d rushed out several times in past seasons to scare away minks and others while she squawked and stood her ground against them. And we’d already had several such interventions this year.
So here they were, landing right next to me and actually snuggling in together for a short siesta less than 20 feet away. And as they were jockeying for position around mom, this little one came wondering over to me, and with a far away look in his eye, rose up and flapped his little wings. Looked like he was dreaming of future flights.
Then he wobbled back and took a nap.
SPIRIT GUIDES
Snow geese. Bosque del Apache, New Mexico, United States.
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.
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.
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.
Strike
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.
Spin Dry
COMET THE FROG
It was a dark and stormy night…
This is a tree frog at night clinging to a rain-dropped, sliding glass door, shot at night from inside my studio by room light.
I’d been editing photos all evening and enjoying the spring rainstorm. It was midnight and I was ready for bed. Then I noticed shiny little blobs of underbellies slithering up the glass doors - five tree frogs creeping their way up the wet glass.
I hesitated - I had to get up in five hours. But it was too good an opportunity to pass up. It’s not often that a photo-op you can shoot from the comfort of your home and pajamas literally comes knocking at your door. Sleep could wait.
Frogs hang around the doors at night because the light from the room attracts insects. It’s movement that attracts frogs not light. But nothing was flying in that downpour. My theory is the backlit raindrops sliding down the glass looked like a potential meal and that is what drew them in.
They hung around while I played with exposures, compositions, and avoiding my reflection, then one by one they flung themselves off, away into the night. We entertained one another for half an hour, and then it was lights out.
When I finally made it to bed I told Terrie it was still raining cats and dogs – and frogs.
SMALL WONDER
It wasn’t what I was used to.
Normally, if the mother mallard suspects that I might be in my island blind, she keeps her distance. She will feed her chicks around the perimeter and swim past freely but she would never land anywhere near the blind.
But this season, I think mom was a repeat customer. They all look the same but when I checked previous year’s photos it looked like she had similar markings. And I believe she knew she’d be safer near us in case of predators.
Indeed, we’d rushed out several times in past seasons to scare away minks and others while she squawked and stood her ground against them. And we’d already had several such interventions this year.
So here they were, landing right next to me and actually snuggling in together for a short siesta less than 20 feet away. And as they were jockeying for position around mom, this little one came wondering over to have a closer look at the big eye of the lens that was peering down at it. Almost felt like we were going to be friends.
I could get used to that.
POLAR PEEPS
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.
Sugar Bear
Bubbs
BUBBS
Polar Cub
TUSH
More than just a cute butt …
The underwater viewing room at the zoo is a great place to see the polar bears. Usually, just before feeding time, they enter the pool to cool down and play. The children have a great time watching and gather around the windows to get as close as possible, screaming in delight, laughing, and slapping trying to get their attention. Where else could you go nose to nose with a polar bear?
Often, you’ll hear comments about the paws. The bears love to charge the windows and push themselves back off from the glass. When they press their feet flat up against the windows you get a beautiful view of the undersides. The paws are giant sized and to me there’s a certain cartoon quality about them. I think it’s the roundish shape of the pads and black dots of the claws, set off against the thick white fur, that makes them seem cute and friendly.
That and knowing there’s a nine-centimeter thick safety panel keeping them at bay.
FLickers
OLD FAITHFUL