THE TWO ASPECTS

Female Orchard Oriole  --------  

I have mentioned many times before how important the story telling aspect is for me in my wildlife photography. I prefer the environmental picture of an animal over the close up view. There is nothing wrong with a close up view, it is just not my personal preference. How the female Orchard Oriole gleans little insects from underneath the fresh leaves in the light of the morning sun is such an example. The photo is pretty much straight out of camera, no crop, just a slight correction of the white balance. The fall off from the lens around the edges works for this image, so I left it as it is.

On the other hand I love when a photo has an artistic appeal. To be honest, I didn’t realize when I pressed the shutter button for the second photo that the shape of the oriole’s head is perfectly framed by the fork of the cedar branch. To pronounce this effect even more I cropped the picture on top and left hand side and removed a story telling element in the lower right corner. Yes, there was an orange half and the story was actually about how the orioles approach this source of food at our feeders. My final version of this photo the more artistic approach doesn’t need the orange. It works perfectly without it.

In a perfect world both sides, the story telling and the esthetic aspects come together. These are the rare moments because nature isn’t always predictable, but aiming for them will stay on my agenda.

Male Orchard Oriole

WEEKEND AT THE AIRPORT

Regional Airport, Dubuque, Iowa

On Monday starts the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, an annual gathering of aviation enthusiasts from all over the world with more than 10,000 aircraft. The week before the North American Trainer Association (NATA) has a gathering at the Regional Airport in Dubuque, Iowa and many of their T-6’s can be seen every year. I was at the airport Friday evening and yesterday afternoon but because of weather (we had a tornado warning yesterday) all aircraft were just parked on the tarmac.

This morning I had a chance to point my lens at some of the T-6’s and a P-51D as they finally took off and headed to Oshkosh for the big airshow next week. I shot between 1/100s and 1/125s because I wanted the prop of the planes blurred. With a hazy blue sky in the back it is not so easy to communicate fast motion but the blurred prop tells the story.

You may ask, why do you shoot aircraft as a wildlife and nature photographer? First, I have a deep respect for those who keep these old airplanes flying. They are part of our history and I believe it is important to keep it alive for the younger generation. Second, it is a great practice for shooting a moving subject and I’m certain that my wildlife photography can benefit from. And third, most old aircraft have an esthetic appeal to me, like many other historic master pieces of engineering.

3 PICS, 3 WAYS OF TRYING TO GET A PLEASING COMPOSITION

Beside the story telling in my wildlife photography I like to make photos that are esthetically pleasing. I admit, not every picture that tells a story complies with this criteria. At the other hand, not every photo that is a piece of art tells a story about the critter or the environment it lives in. I guess there is an in between and a demand for either side.

Get it right in camera and be done with it is a high bar that I like to jump but this is quite often easier said than done. Here are three pictures from yesterday’s shooting at the Mississippi. Each was made with a pleasing composition in mind but the outcome required more or less correction.

Focussing on just one Canada Goose and panning with the lens led to this shot. No crop, the bird’s position in the frame tells the story of a direct overflight, and the light reflected from the snow on the ground make for a pleasing picture in my books. I wished it would be always that way 😊.

More geese flying by at the same location. The light is again just great. I tried to capture the typical V-shape of the formation and integrated it as a triangle in my composition. Everything worked out good, except for the fact that one goose was cut by the edge of the photo on the left hand side. There was no remedy for that beside removing the bird in question. I didn’t get it right in camera obviously but this small correction made me keep the image.

Over the years I made thousands of photos with a Bald Eagle in flight and I keep still several hundred in my photo library. So, why another one? The shape of the cloud in the background and the way the eagle holds its wings at that moment make it an esthetically pleasing photo for me. Well, but I missed the composition completely by having the eagle dead center. I would not have a problem with that if the eagle would fill most of the frame, but here the cloud is an important part of the photo. It just didn’t look right to me. A small crop on the right and at the bottom came to my rescue. Again, not right in camera, but the photo is much better balanced after the correction in post process.