After Robert’s wedding, we stopped at a few places in Texas in the Dallas area. This old shed, now out of commission, was on a chicken farm that we toured. It was a drab picture originally, being taken in early afternoon. But I found a new Adjustment in Photoshop today called HDR Toning (Image > Adjustments > HDR Toning…) and thought I’d try it out. Perhaps I overdid it a little in this picture, but it’s a nifty way to make a single image (as opposed to a bracketed sequence of images) appear surrealistic.

I decided to wait just a little bit longer to see if the Tamias Sibiricus would return to it’s precarious banquet table.

After hiking down the trail for only a few minutes, I spotted this little Korean Chipmunk gnawing on a nut in a tree. Because I had my wide angle lens on the camera at the moment, I slowly tried to change the lens without scaring it away. In the minute that this process took, the chipmunk finished its meal and scurried away through the underbrush. Should I wait for it to come back? I had the telephoto lens ready now, so I decided to see if it had just gone for seconds.

Evidently this was so. Most of the time, it pays to wait!

Since day one in Korea, I hoped I’d have some time for birding in the nearby parks on a clear morning. Not many mornings are clear, so when I woke up a few days ago to see the sun spreading it’s fresh light over the landscape, I got up in a hurry! Though it was almost 7:00, I figured the birds would still be out for another hour or two.

I was planning on hiking out to a small pond over the hill, but on the way, I purposed to would take my time and enjoy whatever might be along the trail. To my surprise, there were many of them! Though I don’t have the greatest of equipment in the world for photographing birds, here are a few things I’ve found helpful in getting good pictures:

• Let the birds come to you; they won’t let you get close to them. There are exceptions to the rule, but generally, you will scare anything away if you try to move closer to it. I’ve done it over and over again.
• Be extremely patient. Only two birds came close enough to get a satisfactory shot during an entire 20 minute wait in one spot; and that was with dozens of them flying all around me.
• Keep the camera close to your face and have all the settings on your camera ready at any given moment. Perching birds move around quickly, and opportunities are fleeting when they are close enough to shoot.
• Position yourself close to where birds like to be. Don’t stand in the middle of a clearing; sit within “shooting range” of tree trunks, low hanging branches, or thick patches of grass.
• Do not shoot birds against the sky. This really isn’t that difficult as is really only a matter of where you position yourself. If you have to, over expose by at least one stop to keep them from being completely silhouetted against the sky.
• Focus on the eye; it is where viewers look first. And catching a glint in the eye makes the bird look alive. When it looks toward the light source, it’s the time to show off your fps!

I never made it to the pond, actually. I didn’t get too much further then over the hill by the time my hour was up. But it was worth it. The pond will have to wait for a future excursion.

Most people are happy when spring begins to appear. But one sad thing about spring coming is that all the snow melts. Then it rains. And rains. And then, because it’s really still winter, it gets cold again and everything turns to ice. Most people are unhappy about that.

But there is always two ways of looking at things. I like ice because it’s cool stuff to take pictures of. For example, I was hiking through the woods the other day, and I couldn’t believe how beautiful the forest was: every twig was covered in ice and the sun was setting the entire forest to shimmering and dancing in it’s light!

Or were the twigs covered in ice? Sky is always richer blue looking away from the sun, so I turned around to look for better color in my pictures . . . there in front of me was the ugly brown forest. I couldn’t believe it. Same forest, two different levels of beauty, wholly dependent on perspective.

It’s not often that I get to go on a photoshoot with someone else. But when a friend called me last night to ask if I would like to accompany him on a night photography venture, I readily jumped at the chance.

It wasn’t anything fancy; just a stroll down to where a small bridge crosses a creek. You see, that was the only place where we could find enough light to take pictures. The moon was almost full, but clouds prohibited it from shedding much light on the landscape.

Despite the fact that it was in the single digits, and that we weren’t exactly dressed properly for those temperatures, and that twice we had to retreat to a nearby building to warm ourselves up . . . it was actually quite enjoyable! Perhaps more memorable than profitable, but still, quite enjoyable. 

Northwoods Retreat