I enjoy watching and shooting the Black Skimmers. They are usually a mix of adults and immature birds - when I see them both in New York and New Jersey.
They will let me get pretty close, but often will also seemingly fly off for no reason. But usually it is a jogger, a person with a dog, or a predator flying by (like a peregrine, which I have seen buzz them at Cape May).
Some times when they take off they will fly around and fly off and land a half mile or more down the beach. Other times they will land right near where they took off from. For this reason I usually give it a few minutes and stay where I was shooting from without moving or getting up. This has occasionally worked, and they have landed right back in front of me.
I find that cool. And even cooler is when the birds approach me. Sometimes this has been due to other people approaching them from another side/area, and it has also been when they have the water/surf on one side of them and me on the other. When they run away from the surf and towards me, to a safer location, I find that to be a sign that I am there and not bothering them and they are comfortable with me shooting them.
It is also interesting to see them as they move this way and that way, and how often there will be an immature bird that must be tired and it is either sleeping and not moving or it is just slower to respond and follow the movements of the flock.
The really do behave like one bird, all in sync, when it comes to responding to perceived danger. If they think there's something bad about to happen they will all fly off together in a moment. Only once or twice have I seen them leave a bird behind, and that bird has always been injured or weak. To survive they've got to be able to go with the flock when danger approaches...
My long time approach to making images has been to shoot, review, pick the best shots, and then try to do better the next time.
The next time I might have the past images in mind and I might try to reproduce the best images, with something new or with some element that was missing added this time. Or maybe the next time I remove something that took away from the past images.
To me this is the standard approach. And it is the kind of process that is needed to learn how to take or make better images in a large variety of circumstances and for a variety of subjects.
There are so many things to learn about gear and settings. For example just coming up with when and if you want to shoot in manual mode or one of the auto-exposure modes takes time. I shoot in a few different modes but mostly manual exposure with auto-ISO. But there are still some times when manual ISO and manual exposure are better. I like using auto-ISO when the light and conditions change a lot and dialing in some exposure compensation to adjust the exposure is easy to do. Other times when the light is consistent, and the subjects are consistent going full manual can be better. This allows for tighter control of the exposure and less variation, and I can try for more specific/artistic images.
Regarding exposure, picking shutter speeds for shooting can have a huge impact on the images and what is recorded, not just if the subjects are sharp enough or frozen given their speed and the size of the lens. For this setting, there is the basic approach of calculating all the component parts of the setup and then trying to freeze the action. Fast moving subjects - faster shutter speed. Longer lens - faster shutter speeds. Hand holding the lens - faster shutter speeds. That's the basic math to be taken in to account.
But the more advanced thinking would be to not just respond to those and only try to freeze the action, to make simply a sharp image with a frozen subject. Years ago I remember seeing this panda photo shot my Nick Nichols and thinking that I was unaware of so much that goes in to a good image. It was taken with a long lens, in what I would now consider challenging light and shot with a slow shutter speed. This informs me now about how those early simple rules for photography are a good starting point but to make better images I need to keep pushing.
Here are some examples of images that use blur/slow shutter speed for positive effect:
Realizing that the rules for sharp images are not rules to blindly live by has helped me grow. Of the above images all are off a tripod with the intention of making the resulting image except for the last one of the eagle which was a 'happy accident'.
Capturing animals with some motion helps to bring them to life in an image that otherwise might be frozen and lack that feel. Going back to that panda image - seeing some motion can really help bring more to a photo.
Capturing images that work with blur can be pretty difficult though. Things that contribute to a motion blur image not working well are: too much blur, nothing being sharp, having to stop down the lens too much and seeing tons of sensor dust, the blur not going in the right direction due to imperfect panning technique, etc.
So what's the next technique, the next default thought process to get rid of or to question? I have done a short project I called "going vertical" where I shot vertical composition for a while and that helped to break out of the way I was almost always shooting with the camera held in landscape/horizontal mode... I even shot a vertical video...
IDK what's next. Not shooting from eye-level is another approach to take. It is easy to stand and shoot from that position. Or to setup a tripod at eye-level and shoot from there. But shooting from lower, or as low as possible really makes for a better/different perspective.
Another norm or standard that I've noticed was worth reconsidering is that of hoping for 'good weather'. I now consider good photography weather usually anything other than clear blue skies or overcast and rainy. As a result I like some overcast, or some clouds, or some rain and storms, or cold weather and things freezing or hot weather and animals that might be reacting to the weather... This summer I specifically went to shoot osprey on 2 of the hottest days in order to see the birds hot. It is harder to shoot on these types of days, be it hot or cold. It takes preparation, and the right approach to pull it off successfully. One of my go to things to help in all kinds of weather or times of year is to keep a case of bottled water in my trunk. Being thirsty or dehydrated is easy to let happen. But it is one of the simplest things to control when shooting and so many things aren't controllable. It's just like always trying to be well fed, and to have ample snacks that are high in protein and good for me. I often will do a day trip on a Saturday and drive 200-500 miles round-trip, where I get up a couple of hours before sunrise and get somewhere good, and then shoot all day and then drive home. And then doing the same or similar the next day, on a weekend when most people might be resting, sleeping in and recovering from a hard week of work - to do it my way takes planning and execution.And being more prepared allows for something to not go my way, and not really be that bad or wreck a day of shooting.
So what's the next thing to mix it up and bring my photography to a new place?
I'm going to start 2017 by going West to a place I've never been, to shoot animals and landscapes I've never seen or shot. I'm trying new things.
With the change in the year, I want to... think like I did at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens when I went a half dozen times this summer. I went, and went, and got the images I had defaulted to, and then I started to explore more and try for different images and I think I captured my best images of the Lotus Flowers. I've posted a few myself, and shared many more with Tara Brach to use with her talks and meditation posts.
I wonder what it would take to quickly see the default program running, the program that tries to get me to make the same images again, to see the way I have seen before and repeat things. I wonder if there are ways to do less pattern matching and finding less comfort in the old, and seeing new and fresh, quickly or quicker...
I'm going to try new experiences, new locations, new approaches when I can, and I'm going to try to advance my photography and not just make 'sharper images' but make new and different images.
July is a great time for photographing Osprey in Maryland. The chicks are getting big, and still in the nests, not yet fledged. They are also eating a ton of fish so the adults need to be active to keep up with the demand for food.
In years past I have let other things grab my time and attention and I have missed out on shooting the osprey chicks.
But this year I took a day off of work, and I also took a weekend day and went to 2 specific nests near St. Michaels Maryland to shoot the birds. There are so many nests in Maryland, but I liked these two because they are near but not too near to land, and they each had 3 chicks this year.
At the first nest I watched as one particular bird worked out, flapping away, gaining wing strength.
What really caught my eye was how the adult was perched slightly higher than the chicks, and was surveying the area but also keeping a close eye on the chicks too.
The other nest I shot at had the 3 chicks, and they spent more time being fed. The male osprey was nearby and delivered 3 fish within about an hour while I was there for about 3 hours. It was super hot, above 90/95 degrees.
While shooting from a nearby marina I drank 4 bottles of water to just keep up with the heat and sweat.
The above photos are new posts to flickr. The below images I have shared already, here's the male at the second nest checking me out while carrying a fish, and then coming in for a landing at the nest.
I really like how crowded the nest seemed and how they were all huddled together so closely. They were also very eager to eat, and the female (adult) went right for the fish and then repositioned herself to feed the chicks. The male was more tentative.
It is not that often that I have seen and photographed chicks and both adults in a nest. Usually the male will stay away or fly away quickly. This male was similarly edgy but delivered 3 fish, and stayed in the nest longer than I expected.
Part of the reason could be the distance of the nest from the shore. It was not that close - I used a 600mm and crop body (D500) to shoot them, and with a 1.4 teleconverter for some images. In addition, when the male came by and seemed to do a couple fly-bys checking out the nest and me, but not landing, I backed up slightly, until he landed on the nest. At one point I also used a cheap wireless camera trigger - where I set up the camera on the nest, turned off auto-focus, and then walked away to see if the birds' behavior would change.
During this time the male caught the fish and then would land on a nearby channel marker and eat some of the fish and wait. The male, and female actually while the male was hunting, took to the air to ward off other osprey that intruded on their territory.
Each day was about a 4 hour drive round trip, and probably around 4-6 hours shooting.
The osprey should be coming back in two and a half to three months. It will be fun to see them again.
I was posting regularly and then well I wasn't. I did it for a bit, but then fell back in to my old ways and got busy doing other things (but still shooting mostly).
As 2016 is winding down, I was thinking about using December to catch up and post a new photo a day, but that didn't happen.
So today I just posted 3 images, each from a different day and locations.
(In chronological order)
The first images is of some oystercatchers, an adult and chick, feeding in New York, in late August. I grew up just down the beach, literally, from this spot where a bunch of different birds nest (common terns, black skimmers, oystercatchers, plovers, etc).
The oystercatchers can be a little hard to shoot if they get weary and react to being watched. This day I tried to notice when they were watching me and then looked away and didn't eyeball them. It mostly worked and I shot them from a fairly close distance as they went around hunting and feeding their chicks. There were a handful of adults and chicks.
Next I shared an image of a Green Heron from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington DC.
This year I went as many times as I had been in all previous years combined. Earlier in the year I photographed the lotus flowers a bunch, experimenting and doing some macro stuff in the last few visits. By September when I got the heron the flowers were past, except for a few lotus, and for some water lilies in the back ponds. Most of the busy summer traffic is over and I saw just a few other people there this morning. Everyone comes for the lotus - so by September it is much more peaceful and low key. And even if your thing is flowers there were enough water lilies to make it good.
Finally from later in September, I shot some stars at Cape May along the beach.
I've only experimented with star photography a little bit, I think all this year. It can be a challenge. Getting good focus is hard because it is night out and the stars are small and far away - I used manual focus on nearby lights and tried to chimp and adjust but I need to work on the night focus techniques... With the cold nights, it can be hard to keep the lens from fogging up (but I plan to use hand-warmers to keep the lens warmer than the ambient air temp and some special lens coating/spray to prevent fogging next time). I also wonder if shooting from sand (ie not solid ground) contributed to softer images.
2016 has been an amazing year, I've seen and done a lot. I've changed a lot of things I needed to change (in 2015 and 2016). I've been meditating for a little more than a year, and chalk up a lot of the movement in my life to that slowing down practice.
![July Osprey [3]](https://c7.staticflickr.com/1/641/31737291686_ce300f5920_b.jpg)
![July Osprey [2]](https://c7.staticflickr.com/1/456/31737307046_7193d50ce6_b.jpg)
