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.
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.
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.
Finally. It took way, way longer than it should have. But I’ve finally culled more than 5,000 images from Bosque del Apache down to a handful of selects. Fortunately (given how long it took) I’m pleased with the final product. These are by far my strongest Bosque images. Indeed, I created a couple of images that rank among the best in my portfolio.
As a sort of celebration of having finished, I created the video that headlines this post. I’ve been looking for a new, non-boring way to highlight my work. Looks like Animoto may be just the ticket. It’s easy. It looks great. Slideshows are usually so boring, but this keeps things interesting. There are only two real downsides: (1) Animoto gives no control over the way it assembles the final product. You click, wait, and hope. Mostly, this works fine. However, the software occasionally insists on cropping some images to a 4×3 aspect ratio. I couldn’t find any work around, no matter how many times I clicked the “remix video” button. (2) even though I’m using a paid version of Animoto, it insists on branding of embedded video.
Please watch the video (it’s short) and let me know what you think in the comments.
Below is a gallery of the images from the slideshow, in their full, un-Animoto’ed glory. Click on a thumbnail for a larger version and for links to purchase a print or greeting card, or license an image. (If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, the gallery will look much better if you click through to my website.)
A snow goose breaks to land, Bosque del Apache NWR, New Mexico
This snow goose (Chen caerulescens) is one of my favorite images from Bosque del Apache National Wildlife refuge. Even with thousands of birds landing in the field to feed, it is surprisingly difficult to get the perfect head-on shot.It is doubly hard with a perfect light angle, as here.
I started a long blog post about my experience shooting at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge over the last three years, years, the difference between the conditions this year and last, the reasons why I made various images, etc. Then I realized that the post was ponderous and boring. Instead, here is a simple gallery of the best images from my trip this winter, plus a so-so quail image that I included for sentimental reasons. Hopefully the images can speak for themselves. (Click on a thumbnail for a larger view and for a slideshow).
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After spending way, way too much time editing and tinkering with my images from Bosque, I have finally posted a collection of my favorite images from the trip. See the whole collection in the Bosque 2008 Gallery.
If you enjoy the images, please let me know in the comments.
I apologize for the derth of posts over the last couple of weeks — I was away shooting at Bosque, and then preoccupied with work and holiday shopping. In any event, I’ve finally had a chance to start seriously editing the 5000+ images that I captured at Bosque Del Apache earlier this month. Based on my initial review, I’m pretty sure that the image above is my favorite from the trip — and I made it about ten minutes after I set up on my very first day. The rest of the trip was somewhat anticlimactic.
More images after the jump
Continue reading First Bosque Images
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