New thoughts on photography

When working on getting my website back online, there was a common theme; I didn't have a lot of passerine photos that I was happy with.

Some serious soul searching, and then it came to me: I hadn't been taking that many passerine photos for 2 reasons:

1.) Work

--- well I need money to to take pictures of gulls etc! So lets look at point #2:

2.) The style of photo I wanted (for passerines).


----

So what does style have to do with it? Well keeping my eye peeled on the ABA's Birding Magazine and some nature photography forums taught me something. The gold standard for passerine photos is to use feeders/tapes/water etc. to bring passerines to a beautifully setup perch. Perhaps the best known photographer who does this type of thing is Alan Murphy (texas)

http://www.alanmurphyphotography.com/favorites.htm


He has a video on the very basic idea on how to get a lot of shots like these (he'll fill in the details if you come on a workshop):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN5voUBv8cA


---

annnddd what does this have to do with me? Well I had convinced myself that if I want to take passerine photos, I should be doing these elaborate setups... Which in turn led me to never really spending the time trying to get them!

Lazy? Procrastination? You bet... But I eventually decided that my birding side enjoys taking photos of the birds in the habitats I find them in. And not only that, but I never really actually thought about what are the photos that I (yes, myself) actually enjoy looking at!!!

Seems crazy to not think like this, but there really seems to be 3 types of photos in this world (from my point of view:)

1.   Photos that people think are "good"

2.   Photos that "sell"

3.   and photos that you (or me, in this case) actually really like for some reason or another....


And you know what? In the end, and in my current phase of life, it really is #3 that I need to be focusing on! And then, I'll have the camera out more, and end up with more of those stinkin passerine photos that I'm missing!

So here's phase 1 of the revolution:

Full frame Eastern Phoebe - the tip of Point Pelee - March 21, 2011 (yes!)

When it comes down to it, I just love photos like this. They look a lot better when you can see the full-sized picture and all the detail, but hey, what can you do. 

Rusty Blackbird - 95% of frame - Point Pelee - March 21, 2011 (yes, again!)

Another example. No, the bird isn't full frame. No, the background isn't "clean", no the perch isn't great --- but it's what you can expect for the next while. I left this bird with a happy feeling about getting as close as I did, rather than a strange mix of feelings I have after trying to lure a bird onto a set perch. 

----

So there we go! Recent photography, and some crazy thoughts. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with "perch photography" - the results speak for themselves... I'll probably still do it on rare occasions, but I just need to have more fun with it!