Today was my presentation about STORYTELLING IN WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY, hosted by the Friends of the Mines of Spain, in the E.B. Lyon Interpretive Center, Dubuque, Iowa. We had a great audience and the questions at the end showed how passionate many people are about wildlife, conservation, and of course photography.
One of the topics I was talking about is how we can make better photographs of the common species. You know, the ones that are present most of the time and not so difficult to find. Well, we can look and wait for good gestures or shoot from a more interesting angle instead of pointing the camera down to the critter, but I think the most important point is to photograph the common species in interesting light. Light that really shows their colors or texture of fur or feathers.
Such a common species here is the Mourning Dove. We have usually between four and a dozen of them around here in our woods. They come to the bird feeders once in a while but most of the time they sit on a branch, expose themselves to the sun, and try to stay warm. Not really exciting action, but if they come close and there is some good warm side light from the low sun I can’t resist and have to make a few clicks of these pretty wild doves.