A snowy egret shakes back and forth, rufflings its feathers.
This week’s photo is a snowy egret just after shaking his body to resettle its feathers. He had been fishing along the bank of a slough, and the wind kept disturbing his feathers. He shook his body vigorously to fluff all of his feathers, so that they could resettle into a natural insulating layer.
This type of shake will rearrange the micro-structure of a bird’s outer feathers, keeping water from penetrating the inner feathers. Usually a resettling of the feathers if followed by preening and a little oiling (if the bird has a preen gland). This egret didn’t bother preening at this time, as he seemed very focused on catching dinner.
A black-crowned night heron perches on a small rock in a middle of a pond. Its reflection shows in the glassy water in early morning light.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a good opportunity for a minimalist portrait of a black-crowned night heron in beautiful light. It was dawn and I saw this heron perched in the middle of a small pond on top of a rock. The water was very still, accentuating the quiet of the morning. The background was the water behind the bird, which would blur into a pure solid. The placid surface created a nice reflection. What drew me to this composition was the lack of habitat (other than the rock on which the heron perched). I couldn’t have created a more fundamental portrait if I had posed the bird in a studio.
A dowitcher wades through shallow water, looking for food just before sunset, Baylands, Palo Alto, California
I photographed this dowitcher just as the last light of the day was hitting the marsh. He was busy with dinner, but paused long enough for me to create a portrait. I like this shot because it shows some of the bird’s habitat along with the entire body. Although crisp bird portraits with blurred backgrounds of solid color look great, sometimes we strive to isolate the subject from its habitat just a little too much.
Have you ever taken a great photograph, been really excited about it, only to get it onto the computer and see that some distracting background element ruined it? I have learned this lesson too many times. Yes, you can spend time in photoshop and mask and clone and clean and and and…. It takes a lot of time (and photoshop skill).
A couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to actually modify my behavior based on this lesson. I was photographing snowy egrets by the water, and had my tripod legs low and splayed out, so as to get my camera close to the ground. I saw a juvenile black-crowned night heron perched atop a short fence, and took the following picture.
Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron. A small strip of sky is visible at the top of the frame.
I was really focused on its head angle and exposure, and was pretty happy with the result, when I scanned the entire frame and noticed the background. The shallow depth of field gave me a nice solid green, except for a sliver of blue at the top of the frame. While the photo was still good, the sky at the top detracted from the even background. No problem – luckily I had noticed this issue while I was still behind the camera. A quick adjustment to my tripod legs raised my rig to eye-level with the bird, eliminating the sliver of sky, and improving my photo. The resulting image is below.
By moving the camera up, I was able to eliminate the sky, and create a solid smooth green background.
No matter what type of photography you are doing, it always pays to stay attentive to everything in your frame. Usually by simply moving up, down, left or right, you can improve the shot and save yourself a ton of work on the computer.
