Photo of the Week

July 6, 2011January 14, 2013

White-faced ibis with fish

A white-faced ibis catches a small fish for dinner. Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-7D. ISO 640. Evaluative metering +1 EV: 1/500 sec. at f/8.

I took this photograph in February, but just now had a chance to process it and get it up on my site. With the spring migration ending, and way too much snow still in the high Sierra, I’ve been biding my time photographically by culling through some older shots that I was too busy to attend to when I took them.

This photo features one of several white-faced ibises that make an annual appearance at Palo Alto Baylands every winter. Seemingly out of place in the Bay Area, there are always at least one or two that stop by for a couple of weeks. Usually, they hang out far into the marshes, but occasionally they come closer within camera distance. Then it becomes a game of patience.

I was watching this ibis for about an hour and a half as the sun was creeping toward the horizon behind me. With each passing minute, the light got sweeter, but my opportunity for getting a shot that stood out was vanishing. Then, just before the light started to fade, he made a quick thrust into the shallow water, and up came a small fish. He seemed quite proud of himself, and actually strutted around a bit with the fish before consuming it. All the while my shutter clicked away. This was my favorite photo from the day – a proud ibis with his fresh catch.

June 20, 2011January 14, 2013

From the archives: Long-billed Curlew

A long-billed curlew stands in shallow water, reflected in the morning light. Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-7D. ISO 1000. Evaluative metering +2/3 EV: 1/320 sec. at f/5.6

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I’ve been busy with summer activities, and haven’t had time to process new photos lately. So I thought I’d share one from my archives that I like. Sometimes a very simple portrait composition can work well, especially if the bird has interesting features.

This curlew was standing as still as a statue is calm water. It was a good thing he was still, because the morning was a bit dark – the sun was just starting to rise behind some thick clouds, creating a gloomy morning atmosphere. On darker days, I have to bump up the ISO slightly in order to hold a reasonable shutter speed. In this case 1/320 seconds was fast enough to capture this immobile curlew. If he’d been feeding, it would have been much harder to capture his movements without blurring the photo.

My favorite feature of this photo is that the water was so still that it fades into a solid color abstract, both behind the bird, and around the bird’s reflection. This has the same effect as using a solid color backdrop for a studio portrait – it isolates the subject and removes all extraneous elements from the image. When I see a subject I want to photograph out in nature (be it a bird, sunset, tree or rock), I am constantly thinking about how I can simplify the image. After the initial excitement of a new shot passes, I step back and think, “What is this image all about?” Once I identify the aspects that drew my to that rock or that tree in the first place, I set about trying to remove any elements that don’t support the story I’m trying to tell in the image.

Sometimes, working an area can be difficult and frustrating – after all, nature is never a sterile, controlled environment. Sometimes however, as in the image above, a simplified image is given to me as a gift. I’m never one to complain about those images that come easily!

June 12, 2011January 14, 2013

Great Blue Heron Chicks

Two great blue heron siblings huddle together as a strong wind blows across their nest. Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-7D. ISO 400. Evaluative metering 0 EV: 1/400 sec. at f/8

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Recently I joined two photographer friends in photographing two large great blue heron nests. One nest (above) held two relatively young chicks, while the other housed three siblings who were almost ready to fledge. In the smaller nest, the two chicks waited and waited, but I never witnessed a parent return with food. The other nest, however, was a different story.

Three hungry great blue heron chicks eagerly await the return of a parent with food. Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-7D. ISO 500. Evaluative metering +1/3 EV: 1/2500 sec. at f/6.3

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About ten minutes after ariving on site, we were rewarded with a parent’s return to feed its chicks. That was when the aggressive battle began.

An adult great blue heron returns to the nest to feed its hungry chicks. Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-7D. ISO 500. Evaluative metering +1/3 EV: 1/2000 sec. at f/6.3

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As the parent was trying to regurgitate its meal for the hungry chicks, they took turns squawking in its face, demanding food.

Hungry great blue heron chicks surround the parent, begging to be fed. Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-7D. ISO 500. Evaluative metering +1/3 EV: 1/2500 sec. at f/6.3

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When it took a while for the food to come up, the chicks got more aggressive. One would grab the parent around the beak, and yank its head down into the nest. When this didn’t work, one of the chicks bit around the parent’s neck and yanked at the throat. I was shocked to see such a display, but figured this kind of behavior fostered some of the competition amongst the siblings that would serve them out in the “real world”.

A great blue heron chick aggressively bites at the parents beak and neck, waiting to be fed. Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-7D. ISO 500. Evaluative metering +1/3 EV: 1/2000 sec. at f/7.1

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After the parent finally dumped the food at the bottom of the nest, it took off, presumably to continue to feed these young insatiable appetites. The youngsters continued to battle each other over the remnants until it was gone. The next time you see one of these seemingly docile creatures standing at the edge of a marsh, remember that they are also predators, trying to eke their own way through the world.

June 5, 2011January 14, 2013

California Quail

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The California quail is a very common bird, but one that is difficult to photograph. I usually only see them scampering from underneath one bush to the next, or flushing from a bush with a great commotion (and giving me a heart attack!) if I approach too closely. If there are other people around making any kind of noise, you can forget about any kind of photo. The only shots I have gotten in the past are of a quail streaking off into the forest.

A couple of weeks ago, I lucked upon one poking around for food on the ground out in the open. It was after sunset, and getting dark quickly. I was alone and trying to move quietly, hoping to see some wildlife before they saw me. When I rounded the corner and saw the quail, my heart skipped a beat and I silently lowered my tripod and prepared my camera.

It is then that I made a classic photographer mistake: I failed to recheck all of my camera settings from my previous shots. I had just been shooting a small song bird on a branch, surrounded by bright white sky. This required an exposure compensation of + 1 2/3 stops, in order to prevent the bird from being rendered as a dark silhouette. As soon as I saw the quail, I readjusted all the other important settings (shutter speed, aperture, ISO) but failed to realize I was over exposing. Luckily the magic of shooting in RAW format saved me, and I was able to recover any blown highlights. However, if I had exposed using a lower compensation (probably +1/3 or +2/3 would have worked here), I could have shot faster than the very slow 1/160 seconds that I used here. Thankfully I had locked down the gimbal head and the quail granted me with a brief over-the-shoulder glance, and I was able to come away with a decent shot.

This shot reaffirmed an old lesson – always know your settings. Sometimes if one setting is off, your images may be ruined, and it is not always immediately apparent from the camera’s LCD. I know wildlife photographers who always reset their cameras to a basic setup whenever they are finished photographing a particular subject. This is especially important in situations with varying light conditions. I know I’ll be following that lesson in the future!