I was testing out my new 600mm lens at the coast last week. I was mostly shooting pelicans but the Cormorants were much more photogenic.
Category: Birds
Day 95 – Goldfinch Tree
I’m busy getting ready to head out to a Photography Workshop in the Columbia River Gorge tomorrow. So, I thought I would delve in to the archives and play with the digital darkroom toys a little today. This tree was just full of lesser goldfinches back in March but I had to crop in and cut out quite a few birds in order to give it a point of focus.
Today’s quote from jazz musician Charlie Parker applies to all art forms I think:
Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.
Day 36 – Canada Goose
I was able to get close enough to this goose down on the greenway for a headshot with the big lens. I like the way the wildflower sort of mimics the neck of the goose. I cropped it from horizontal to vertical but otherwise didn’t change it much. That about exhaust my material from the last bird adventure. But there has been a Great Horned Owl hanging out down there so I will definitely have to try one more time a little earlier and see if I can catch him/her in residence.
This week I am turning to The Tao of Photography for my creative inspiration quotes. Today’s is from Photographer Elliott Erwitt:
To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with how you see them.
Day 34 – Mallard
There were also some ducks and geese about on the greenway yesterday. Perhaps the only good thing to come out of the Almeda Fires is that now you can see Bear Creek and the wildlife that depend on it.
Today Matthew Fox quotes Hildegard of Bingham:
There is wisdom in all creative works.
Day 33 – Red-tailed Hawk
Well, look at that, I’m nearly a third of the way done already. This morning I decided to take another crack at birds on the Greenway. When Cody and I take our early morning walk there are birds everywhere jumping and flitting around. But, once again I was too late and everyone but the Starlings were elsewhere by the time I got back with the camera. So, I was very lucky to find this Red-tailed Hawk hanging out on a tree limb. The sad part of the story is that I was just repositioning the camera but hadn’t gotten it focused when she flew away. Those two flight pictures would have been great if they had only been in focus. Sigh.
Today, from Matthew Fox again:
There is a river of creativity running through all things, all relationships, all beings, all corners and centers of the universe.
Day 28 – Goldfinch
It’s one of those days when I just want to get this checked off so I can move on to other things. So, here’s a little goldfinch from my session with the birds the other day. I cropped in a little to showcase the bird better and sharpened him up some.
Today we have a quote from Janis Joplin:
Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.
Day 25 – Mr. & Mrs. House Finch
I’ve been noticing that when Cody and I go for our second walk of the day there are always finches in the neighbors trees. So, I decided to hang out on my porch for awhile with the big lens this morning. Bird photography is such a good exercise in patience. Usually, by the time I get them in my sights and get the lens focused on them they have flown away. So, I was really lucky to get not one but two House Finches in this shot. I just had to open the shadows so you could see them better due to brightness of the sky and voila.
Today we hear from Antoine de Saint Exupery from The Little Prince:
“And now here is the secret”, said The Little Prince, “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Day 13 – Sparrow
I keep thinking of places I should go and photograph but somehow it has gotten very hard to get in the car and leave home. I noticed the birds in the blossoming trees in the neighborhood this morning and decided to see if I could capture them. I had this one in my sights in amongst the blossoms but it decided to retreat to the top of the tree. If forced to put a specific name to it I would say it is a Sage Sparrow but I didn’t get a good look at it’s back or tail so I’m not positive. I had some goldfinches in my sights as well but then the neighborhood kids came out to play and it was all over for me and the birds this day.
It is almost straight out of camera. I did open the shadows to make its eye more visible and then brought down the blue luminance to darken the sky a little.
I turned today to Rod McIver’s book, Art as a Way of Life. Chapter one is titled Your Inner World: The Repository of Creativity and he begins with a whole page of quotes, one of which I have already used but today this one spoke to me:
Construction on a purely spiritual basis is a slow business. The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul… Wassily Kandinsky
Day 11 – Birds
It was another busy day and I came home from my volunteer work at the Genealogy Library with no idea what I would post tonight. then I took the dog for a walk and felt like I was entering the film set for The Birds. I exchanged the dog for a camera and got to work. I love the one bird flying off and I wanted to include the ones in the tree to keep it from being too symmetrical. Processed it as a black and white with some blue toning and high structure to bring out the clouds.
Today, I turned to Matthew Fox for my quote because I knew it would not take long to find something suitable and Cody wants to go to bed.
Creativity is intimate because it is us most truly, spontaneously, and totally.
Day 6 – Flicker
I took the big lens down to the greenway this morning in hopes of catching some birds before the trees leaf out (please let the trees be healthy enough to leaf out). I wasn’t having much luck. In fact while scanning the trees for birds I missed my step and fell scraping both knees and most of the knuckles on my right hand. Fortunately, the camera landed on its sun shield and seems no worse for the hard landing. I was limping back to my car when this Flicker happened by. In my haste I forgot to zoom the lens all the way in but still got a reasonable shot. I did have to prune a few distracting branches in Photoshop. I’m thinking now maybe I should have gotten rid of a few more.
I’m back to Matthew Fox in my search for Creativity quotes. Still on page 2 of his book and I found this:
When we consider creativity, we are considering the most elemental and innermost and deeply spiritual aspects of our beings.