I never quite get what I expect at Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, but I always seem to come away with something good. On my first visit, I was unexpectedly treated to backlit ground fog, leading to some of my all-time favorite images (samples here). Last year, no ground fog. Instead, I made a wonderful image of a roosting sandhill crane, though I never expected to get close enough to do so. (Cranes don’t like company when they’re asleep).
This year was no exception. The biggest surprise was that my favorite image from the trip is of a road, not a bird. But another surprise was that my images came out much better than I initially expected. Indeed, I was a little bit bummed on the drive home, thinking that I’d wasted the weekend. This is not false modesty. Instead, I think, it is the result of four factors. First, I’ve spent a lot of time photographing sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) already, and so it’s hard to make an image that really excites me. The flight image, below, is a good example. Three or four years I’d have been ecstatic to make such an image. These days I’m happy enough to capture a good flight image. But with lots of practice, it’s not that hard for me to capture these anymore, and I already have a stack of similar images.
Second, the lousy weather affected my mood and sense of photographic opportunities. It was horrendously windy and dusty. At one point, the wind was blowing so hard that I had trouble keeping my tripod upright. Photos are ultimately about emotion. An unpleasant and frustrating experience, I guess, makes one discount the emotional impact of a scene.
Third, I tried some challenging new techniques and I wasn’t sure that my experiments would result in any good images. The sun image at the top of this post is a good example. For a variety of reasons (including not wanting to burn a hole in my retina) these are somewhat of a “hold-down-the-shutter-and-hope” image. Likewise, flight images with the bird directly overhead, like the one above, are tough. The birds pass overhead very quickly (more so with the howling wind), and only a few images come out well.
Finally, as usual, Monte Vista was different than before. Not worse. Just different. For example, there was no ground fog, and indeed the pool where I photographed the lovely ground fog/mist was dry. My plans to make previsulalized images went out the window. Happily, I eventually overcame this change in plan. For example, instead of roosting overnight in the “ground fog pool”, birds roosted in different spot where they were illuminated by beautiful morning light. (Example above). And, there was great behavior on display this year. The cranes were “dancing” (really, fighting) like crazy (see below). Plus, I witnessed a huge crane “blastoff”, where thousands of cranes take to the sky at once. (One example is below; others are in the thumbnail gallery at bottom). Instead of coming away disappointed, I should have realized that these unexpected opportunities would serve as material for some nice images.
Here is a gallery of additional images; please click on a thumbnail for a larger view. (If you’re reading this from an RSS feed or by e-mail, this won’t look right. Long story. Please click through to my website to see this as intended. Sorry!)
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