Forest Path, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Created in-camera by moving the camera during the exposure.)
Time for a brief respite from wildlife photographs. I made these blurred images during a camping trip last summer in Rocky Mountain National Park. I produce these images entirely in camera, by moving the camera during a relatively long exposure. No Photoshop needed. I am fascinated with the marvelous texture.
Blur of pine trunks and forest grasses, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. (Created in-camera by moving the camera during the exposure.)
In addition to the great texture of the image, I love the sense of experimentation and luck involved with this type of shot. Usually I am a photography control freek: I carefully set the exposure, manage depth of field, and ensure that my camera is locked down as solidly as possible. With these images, by contrast I guess at the shutter speed, press the shutter, wave the camera around a bit, and see what I get. There is an element of craft to be sure — I look for strong lines that I think will make beautiful images. But there is a lot more spontaneity, experimentation, and luck, than my normal work.
A Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) with wings and tail flared to land, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio, New Mexico
I spent the better part of the day today editing images from my recent trip to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. By editing, I don’t mean Photoshopping. I mean slogging through thousands of images looking for the keepers. For me, Bosque is mostly about flight shooting. And flight shooting means heavy shooting: a bird flies by at thirty miles an hour. I track it with my camera. When it’s in just the right spot, I hold down the shutter button for a second or so. The camera makes a staccato rattle as I capture six or eight frames. (Gotta love 8 frames per second.) The next bird flies by. Repeat. It’s exhilarating, nonstop action.
A Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) lands in a snow-covered field, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio, New Mexico
The downside is when I get home. There are many, many images to edit. And there are many similar images, with only slight variations in sharpness or composition. Carefully sorting through a day’s worth of heavy flight shooting can take a week or more of spare time. It is mentally taxing, and sometimes a bit tedious. However, there is an upside: hidden among the mass of images, there are always a few gems.
A Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) with wings extended, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio, New Mexico. Note mud on bill from feeding in wet fields.
These images are the gems. I made a couple of “wow” images during my expedition to Bosque. I either knew it when I captured the photo or the first time I looked at the file in Lightroom. These images did not leap out at me immediately. But what a reward for a day of editing to find these lurking among my captures. Great action, light, and color.
Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) landing in a farm field, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio, New Mexico
Hope you enjoy these photos. As a reminder, these images are available as fine art prints, printed and matted in our studio. Please consider purchasing a print to support my photography.
Small forest plants with a dusting of early-morning frost, Rocky Mountain national Park.
After all of the in your face color in the last few posts, I decided to change things up with much more subtle image. I captured this image last fall on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. I was shooting moose when I paused to look down and saw something much more interesting. These tiny leaves were flocked by an early fall frost, which beautifully highlights the texture of the plants.
On a purely technical note, this picture is sharp. On the full-sized image, I can see the ice crystals on the leaf at left. Sharpness is generally overrated: strong seeing is way more important that technical perfection to a successful image. Still, there’s something pleasing about taking a tack sharp, highly-detailed photo.
A flock of sandhill cranes roosts in backlit ground fog at sunrise, Bosque del Apache NWR, San Antonio, New Mexico.
Here’s another favorite image with the “fire in the mist” backlit ground fog. I like this one because of the wider perspective and sense of billowing fog. This looks best BIG. Be sure to click on the image for a larger version.
Snow geese flock takes flight at first light, Bosque del Apache NWR, San Antonio, New Mexico.
Once again I am wading through the huge number of captures that I made at Bosque this year. The going is slow: it is surprising how mentally taxing it can be to make fine distinctions between image after image. If I edit for too long at one stretch, I find myself keeping too many mediocre images. However, there is an upside: finding hidden gems that I previously overlooked.
This is one of those gems. I shot this in very low light, with an iffy shutter speed, at ISO 3200. On my 7D, ISO 3200 often resembles a pointillist painting more than a photograph. Consquently, I did not look at these images very closely on my first quick edit. I just didn’t expect much. In revisiting the high-ISO images this morning, I noticed the pleasing pattern of birds receding into the fog at bottom, coupled with the pleasingly blurred birds taking flight. To my eye, the noisy high-ISO files usually don’t look that great in color. But in black and white, the noise looks artistic, rather than crappy. Add a slight color toning, and voila.
Like this image? Hate it? Please drop me a comment or a tweet.
A herd of bison grazes on the banks of the Yellowstone River before swimming across. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
I can’t decide which of these American Bison (Bison bison) images I like best. Monochrome or color . . . monochrome or color. Please post a comment and let me know which you prefer.
A herd of bison grazes on the banks of the Yellowstone River before swimming across. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
I previously posted another image from this series. For me, at least, good images tend to come in bunches. Search for days, then wham. Conditions are just right and I make several strong images.
A flock of Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) takes flight into backlit ground fog. Dawn. Bosque del Apache NWR, New Mexico.
Sometimes, nature photography is just about being in the right place at the right time. As I’ve posted before, I had the great pleasure of shooting in backlit ground fog (“fire in the mist”) conditions at Bosque del Apache for four days this winter. I made more great images in a few morning hours at Bosque than I’ve made in the prior year.
This flock of Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) kept lifting off into the mist (probably scared by the resident bald eagle) wheeling around, landing, and then doing it again. Spectacular. To capture this image I carefully checked the exposure, composed for a strong line at the bottom of the frame to ground the image, and tried to give the birds a bit of space to fly into.
Check out the ducks in the water at right — I love the rows of roosting ducks receding into the mist. (Click on the image for a larger view.)
A young Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) brakes to land, Bernardo Wildlife Management Area, New Mexico
Here’s another favorite image from Bernardo Wildlife Management Area. As I mentioned before, I photographed here for the first time in December 2010. What a great discovery! Non-stop flight action, with good light angles. Heaven!
There are four keys to a successful flight image like this. First: shutter speed. Even at 1/1000th of a second, you can see that the wing tips are slightly blurred. If my shutter speed was much slower, the entire bird would be unsharp. Second: great light. Third: the background. I strongly prefer flight images with a background that has more than just blue sky. The extra hint of color and context help a lot, I think. Fourth: lots of practice. I’ve made tens of thousands of flight images, and it’s still not easy to keep a fast bird in the frame. But what I thrill when I do.
A sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) is spotlit by the setting sun, Bernardo Wildlife Area, New Mexico
This year, for the first time, I detoured from Bosque to photograph at the nearby Bernado Wildlife Management Area (note: link is to a PDF). The crane action at Bosque was a little slow, both because the corn fields failed, and because the crane pools were frozen solid. Bernardo, on the other hand, had both corn and cranes in abundance.
Bernardo was chock full of cranes; I quickly made some pleasing flight images. However, there were almost too many birds. I couldn’t quite figure out how to make an interesting of the thousands of cranes gathered to feed at the edge of a cornfield. I came up with a few decent takes (some of which I’ll post shortly.) But nothing that I was completely excited about. Just too much detail, too much jumble. Then, just as I was about to pack up my gear and drive back to town, the last rays of the setting sun spotlit a single crane in the field. I’m not sure what created the mix of light and shadow — probably some nearby trees. But whatever the source of the light, I finally had a pleasing image.
Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) and light geese in backlit ground fog at dawn, Bosque del Apache NWR, San Antonio, NM.
As promised, here are some additional “fire on the mist” images from Bosque. I’ve been fortunate to photograph in these conditions a number of times, but it never gets old.
A flock of light geese (mostly snow geese (Chen caerulescens)) roosts in backlit ground fog, Bosque del Apache NWR, San Antonio, NM.
A flock of ducks takes flight into backlit fog, Bosque del Apache, NWR, San Antonio, New Mexico
I returned to Bosque del Apache NWR for the fifth time in December. Conditions this year were the coldest I have ever experienced in central New Mexico. It was around -7°F on the first morning, with heavy snow on the ground. But there was a huge silver, or rather golden lining in the cold temperatures. I was treated to four straight days of spectacular backlit ground fog. Overnight, the relatively warm open water sent billowing clouds of mist into the air. I carefully positioned myself so that the fog would be backlit by the rising sun. As you can see, the results are spectacular. Photographers call this “fire on the mist” for good reason.
I have an (almost) embarrassingly large number of these photos, but I’m fairly sure that this is my favorite. Stay tuned for some more “fire on the mist” photos.
Update: somehow, I lost the text of this blog post. I’ve restored it now. Sorry for any confusion.
American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana) in breeding plumage, Lakewood, Colorado.
I photographed these American Avocets (Recurvirostra americana) at a small wildlife preserve in the middle of urban Lakewood, Colorado. I’ve photographed these birds many times, but I always take pleasure in finding such beautiful animals thriving in the middle of an otherwise desolate urban environment. The managers of the preserve have done a nice job maintaining quality habitat for wading birds like avocets.
An American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana) feeding in shallow water, Lakewood, Colorado.
Like many successful wildlife images, the background, as much as the subject, is the crucial factor in the success of these images. The strongly colored backgrounds compliment the colors of the bird and its reflection. There are two keys to the clean backgrounds in these images: a low angle of view, and luck. The low angle of view causes the camera to “see” background that is further away from the subject. The further away the background, the less in focus it is. Luck, of course, needs little explanation. Let’s just say that avocets like marshy, weedy areas, not the type of environment that lends itself to a clean background.
Nesting great blue herons perform a courtship ritual, Broomfield, Colorado.
I have been editing some heron images from last summer, and decided to create a new collection of great blue heron photos. Please click through to check it out — it includes some images that I have no posted before.
Happy New Year.
An American Bison (Bison bison) grazes in a field in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
I captured this American Bison (Bison bison) a few minutes after images the images in yesterday’s post. A funny and slightly scary thing happened as I was photographing this animal. When I started photographing, it was the closest animal in the herd. It was a fair ways off, I was standing on the other side of a reasonably sturdy barb wire fence, and the bison was more or less oblivious to me. All in all, I felt that I was in a reasonably safe position. After I photographing for a few minutes, a fellow photographer warned me that the bison were getting too close. I was just about to tell him that he was worrying needlessly. But as the words were on my lips, I looked up from the viewfinder. Another very large bison had quietly moved within fifteen or twenty feet of me while I had my eye to the camera. Yikes. For such large animals, it is amazing how quietly they can move. With bison attack videos running through my mind, I quickly moved back.
American Bison (Bison bison) graze in front of an historic Mormon Row barn, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
After capturing my Aplenglow on Grand Teton image, I made a quick visit to the famous Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park. It was getting a bit late in the morning, so I didn’t expect to find great conditions. However, I planned to scout the area for a return visit in the spring. Much to my delight, some of the Jackson Hole bison herd were grazing in front of one of the historic barns. Making things even better, smoke from a controlled burn softened and warmed the late-morning light. A great surprise, and a great way to end the trip.
Panoramic image of Mormon barn, bison, and Grand Teton, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
These images have lots of great detail. Be sure to click on the images for a larger view.
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