2013 – Looking back, part 4

Collective efforts  

I hope you don’t mind if the retrospect of 2013 goes for a few more posts into the new year. I know, the world turns fast but I like to share with you what got accomplished in 2013 and try to determine where I like to head with my photography endeavors.

This image was made in June of last year, and it is just one of many photos made that day. It was the first time that I had the feeling to come a little closer to virtual story telling in my wildlife photography (see the original post from June 2013 by clicking HERE). What a blast it was to watch the American White Pelicans in their collective effort of catching fish in the Mississippi River. I have never seen this before with so many pelicans doing it together (20 - 25 birds). Another reason why this session at the river was important for me is the fact that I didn’t have to crop most images. Get it right in camera is always the goal but I still can’t make this claim for all my photos I show here in the blog. Why is this important? Well, try to make an 18” x 12” print (and I don’t call this a big print!) with a photo that got cropped by 30 - 50%. The quality is just not acceptable because the lack of detail. Most may not see this in a photo with 900 pixels at the long side, like they are downsized here for the blog, but the hour of truth arrives after revealing the prints made from a heavily cropped image. “I haven’t cropped much!” is definitely something I like to say at the end of 2014… :-)