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.)
Evening light plays across storm clouds with windmill in foreground, Pawnee National Grassland, Colorado.
This is another favorite image from my summer visit to Pawnee National Grassland. About an hour before I captured this image, the grassland experienced an intense thunderstorm. A big storm on the prairie is something to behold. (Happily, the storm mostly missed me, so I was able to behold it from a distance. ) The clouds to the west cleared just as the sun set, illuminating the dissipating thunderheads. This image says something about the vastness of the prairie and the power of the frequent storms, with the windmill supplying a sense of scale.
A sandhill crane is silhouetted at last light, Bosque del Apache NWR, New Mexico
This is another favorite image from Bosque del Apache NWR. I’ve shot a number of silhouettes at this pool over the years. Something about the strong, graphical quality of the bird’s profile combined with the ever-changing quality of the light appeals to me. The understated pink and turquoise colors here make this image for me.
Sunset at Bosque, Bosque del Apache NWR New Mexico
My Bosque del Apache folder is the most daunting obstacle in catching up from my backlog of images from last year. After deleting the bad images, I still had ~2000 images to winnow down to my final selects. Unfortunately, I have a difficult time deleting technically competent, but aesthetically mediocre images. I should approach image editing by picking out the small percentage of outstanding, portfolio-grade images and deleting the rest. Instead, I find myself editing from the bottom up, deleting the weakest images during several iterations through a collection of photos. I keep thinking “that one’s decent . . . I might need it some day.” Needless to say, that approach is not very efficient.
Today, however, I made some real progress. While my family was out of the house, I culled the images down to around 500 (this leaves about 150 photos per day of shooting; not terrible). As I head into the editing home stretch, here’s a nice sunset silhouette image to celebrate my progress. At sunset, thousands of birds on the Bosque del Apache NWR fly to their night-time roosts. (The birds in this image are snow geese and sandhill cranes, in case you’re wondering.)
This looks best big. Be sure to click on the image for a larger version.
Sunset with storm clouds, Estes Park, Colorado
These images are of a sunset last fall near Estes Park, Colorado. An afternoon thunderstorm had just passed through, creating this wonderful “storm light” sunset peaking through beneath the storm clouds.
Sunset with storm clouds, Estes Park, Colorado
I usually don’t like to post near-duplicates, but I can’t quite decide which of these compositions I like better. The first image is more colorful, but this second image has a bit more drama. Something about the contrast between the bright sunlit area and the darker clouds above. Please post a comment and let me know which you prefer.
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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