Buckeye, November 11th

Yesterday I set up 10 feeders in the desert south of the town, right next to the irrigation canal. This morning I set up to see what had been attracted to the area. Not very much was happening, so I will continue to bait the area with food and return next week for more observation.

I did manage to see this fellow. He was keeping a very close eye on me and took off as soon as I fired off a couple of shots, but I was quite pleased with this one.

Lake Pleasant

During October I decided to take Alfie and Oscar on an overnight camping trip to Lake Pleasant. It was an eventful trip with plenty of birdlife to capture. However, the real excitement came when the tent fell down after sunset and we had to relocate to sleep in the car! That is the first time a tent has ever fallen down on me! Alfie really didn't settle and was disturbed by the nocturnal wildlife that was in abundance. It ended up being an adventure that I will probably only do on my own next time!

Arlington Butte November 4th

This week I finally managed to get to Arlington to see what bird-life was around. I set my hide up at 04.30 am and sat in the peaceful darkness waiting for the sun. As the sky started to lighten (but still way too dark to get a good shot) I noticed an Egret stood in the water about 15ft from me. Unfortunately a couple of duck hunters scared him off when they started shooting at the other end of the lake! My frustration was short lived as I realized that if the Egret had not seen me there was little chance that the hunters had. I did not want to be at the working end of a shotgun cartridge so I whistled a couple of bars of 'The Adams Family' to let the hunters know where I was. Usually I carry an orange vest, which I can hang from a nearby tree or bush to make my presence known, but of course today I left it behind! The birds didn't return for the next 2 hours, largely because the hunters kept talking between themselves.

As I was driving home I spotted these guys sat in a tree. They were close enough for me to get these shots, but the image required some pretty heavy cropping. As I crept closer to the tree one of these took flight, but the other sat for the next 2-3 minutes allowing me took continue shooting.

I headed back to Buckeye after a this and made my way to the quarry to the south of the town. I didn't see a great deal of activity in the trees, but was able to fire off a couple of shots of this Osprey as it circled above me.

All in all a reasonably successful morning - even if I missed that first Egret!

NYIP Assignment 2

It feels like a really, really long time since I spent any time focusing on my photography (no pun intended!). In the last 2 weeks I have completed my second assignment for my course. I should have submitted 3 photographs for assessment. However, I could not decide on the 3 to send so I chanced my luck and sent 5! I enclosed a lovely letter to my assessor asking her very nicely to take a look at all 5 and make the final decision. Let's see what happens!


Photograph #1: Emphasizing the subject by its size and off-center placement.
Subject: Cat at window
ISO: 400
Lighting Conditions: Indoors, about an hour before dusk, overcast skies.
Lens focal length: 48mm
F-stop: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60”

















Photograph #2: Use framing to emphasize your subject.
Subject: Bird on branch
ISO: 200
Lighting conditions: About 2 hours after sunrise, strong sun.
Lens focal length: 420mm
F-stop: f8
Shutter speed: 1/1000”

Photograph #3: Using leading lines to draw attention to your subject.
ISO: 200
Lighting conditions: Overcast skies
Lens focal length: 27mm
F-stop: f8
Shutter speed: 1/250”

Photograph #4: Using leading lines to draw attention to your subject.
Subject: Maestro at the Controls.
ISO: 200
Lighting conditions: Indoors
Lens focal length: 55mm
F-stop: f6.3
Shutter speed: 1/125”

Photograph #5: Use framing to emphasize your subject
Subject: Sheep through Gate.
ISO: 400
Lighting conditions: Overcast skies.
Lens focal length: 55mm
F-stop: f5.6
Shutter speed: 1/640”

Update

I received my feedback from my assessor for unit 1 of the NYIP course - I have edited my post with the pictures to show the comments for each one.
Also I decided that as I was going to look at resizing my images I would also look at using another border and signature. I am still playing with this but hope that I can roll something out in the coming week.
The unit 2 lessons dropped through the letterbox yesterday and I will start reading this weekend in preparation for the photo assignment. As well as the assignments and lessons, I also received my "press pass", so hopefully I will be able to access a few photo opportunities a little easier.
I didnt do much in terms of photography this week, but I am keen to get back to it in the coming week and I am brainstorming a few personal assignments to add to the NYIP work I will have to do.

The Butterfly Series

I thought I would post the other photographs from my trip to the Butterfly Pavillion at the Desert Botanical Gardens. Next time this exhibition is in Phoenix I will spend more time making a more comprehensive collection of images using a greater range of approaches. Also I will not forget to pack a macro lens next time!
This collection of images is a good example of what I was describing in the post below about sizing.

Sizing??

I have just been taking a look through some of my entries on this blog and noticed that I very rarely use standard sizing for my photographs. Instead, I crop to the point where the picture works for me. This will need to be addressed in the future as I will have trouble finding frames that display the picture correctly if I continue to use custom canvas sizes.
From today I will crop so that I use an 8x10 inch ratio for the purpose of this website and make an alternate size using the ratio 4x6 to keep on file. I hope that this will remedy any printing issues that may arise.

Arlington Butte

I spend the occasional morning at Arlington Butte, which is a bird refuge about 30 miles from my house. Although I have mixed success at photographing the birds - I always seem to be facing the wrong way, or I move at the worst possible moment and scare them away! But, I always enjoy my time there. I usually arrive at 4.30am (ish!) while it is still dark and set up my area. By 6am - 7am the sun comes up and turns the reeds into this great golden colour! By 10am the sun is so bright that the lighting becomes very difficult to work with. However, before the sun comes up completely there is a pre-dawn time that I love - the light is not good enough to be able to catch the detail of the birds, but it gives a different feeling to the surrounding area.

Anyway, Arlington Butte pictures.

People Photography

Over the last couple of years I have tried to find my own method/style to photographing people. Sometimes I try to pose the subject, other times I shoot for the more reportage/candid approach. Anyway, I still have a long way to go and a lot of lessons to learn - but I thought I would share some of my favourite shots in this category.

This first shot is of a little boy who fished in the ocean outside our villa when we were on honeymoon. He was very proud of his catches and would come to our veranda to display the fish he was taking home for his supper. I really like this shot because it has the silhouette that I wanted, but also retains some of the colour of the situation.

This next picture was also from our honeymoon. It was taken at the end of our wedding day as we were enjoying some wine on our veranda. I posed Áine for this shot and I was quite happy with my first attempt at 'photographer direction'. I added a little soft blur to the edges to emphasise Áine.

The next picture was a lucky shot. This is our friend Sara, who at the time of the photograph was dancing at a wedding. I was really pleased with this shot, especially as my flash had been firing randomly all night. For this picture the flash worked and the lighting was just right, Sara's smile and eyes are visible and the picture has (in my opinion) a warm feel to it.

Lastly, this is a candid shot of our friend Cherry. She was concentrating so hard to get the roof to stay on her gingerbread house that she was completely oblivious to me getting the camera out and framing the shot.

New York Institute of Photography - Assignment 1

This week I submitted the first 3 images for my photography course. I had some real problems with the first image - I found this very hard, but knew what I wanted and eventually everything seemed to fall into place. The second image was much easier - the subject was obedient and posed long enough for me to get the right shot. Image 3 was very tough... I was completely uninspired and although I had 6 different ideas in mind I really was not enthused by any of them.

1) Use the shutter speed to depict a sense of motion.

ISO 200, f3.5, 1/15 sec, focal length 18mm.

Assessor Comments: "It amazes me that you got such a crisp shot at 1/15 of a second. That is absolutley amazing... A really interesting shot and I applaud your effort... If you look at the composition you've got the 'action' part of it and I am really impressed that it is so crisp, seeing as you are travelling at the same speed as the other cars. You wonder if everybody is heading for the light at the end of the tunnel. Where is everybody going? It is very mystical.There is a mystery to it. I really like it and I think you were very successful. Good for you, it worked out really great".

2) Use a shallow depth of field to highlight the focus on a subject.

ISO 200, f5.6, 1/80 sec, focal length 120mm.

Assessor Comment: "A lot of branches that could be potentially distracting are included in this picture, but because of your soft focus they aren't and the image has a more 'impressionist' feel to it. You have good light which is not too severe. A nice composition, but you could make the butterfly a little larger if you wanted too".

3) Use a large depth of field to give the impression of distance.

ISO 200, f14, 1/500 sec, focal length 35mm

Assessor Comments: "You have leading, converging lines and a sense of desolation with this. I would avoid having the railway lines in the center of the picture, I would prefer to have them come from the side. But, you have broken the image up nicely by having the tower on the left. Your work is really beautiful.