A Note on the Photography

Wendy pointed out one of my pictures of a hawk was way too small.

 
Okay. Fair enough. I get you.

 

The web is full of helpful tips on bird photography. Things like, use a long lens, be careful of the background, fill the frame, get good light, show the birds doing interesting things, and take a lot of pictures but only share your best ones. 

 

I try to take good pictures, and I try to work these tips into my photography. I only post the better of my pictures. Every once in a while I might get lucky and get two or three of these tips into my pictures, but probably never all of them.
 

I might fill the frame, but it's a little dark and not doing much:

 

or it's a little blurry.

 

But, let's be honest, my problem most of the time is the damn bird is too far away:

 

or too small:

 

or too far away, too small, and a little out of focus.

 

And believe me, I crop the hell out of these to get them as big as they are. A bigger lens could help, sure, and it is a sore temptation to get one. But one of those tips I read online is the best zoom is a good pair of walking shoes. Getting closer, and all that entails, gets you better pictures. And what getting closer entails is going slow, holding still, sometimes getting wet, and probably ought to mean hiding under a blind. A lot of things I don't do very well.

 

I like to jump on my bike, throw my camera bag in the basket, and ride around taking pictures of what I see. Most of the time I only get an hour or two to do this. It's hard to find four or five hours to scope out the perfect location, set up a blind, and wait for the right picture to pass in front of me. So I think my hankering for a long lens is a reflection of my hope that a longer focal length will make up for my lack of skill and discipline. When in reality, of course, it won't. Maybe.

 

Posting my pictures on here sometimes makes me think I'm a photographer. I'm not. I'm a novice birder trying to keep track of the birds around me. Pictures, and this blog, are my tools for doing that. I'd like the pictures to be great. But greatness is not a prerequisite. I'm not sure goodness is. If you can identify the bird in the picture, that's good enough for my purposes. I've got a picture of a Mountain Bluebird - a really stunning bird that is not too common around here - that's way off in the distance and blurry as hell.  But you can tell what it is. I was able to look it up based on the picture. So if I don't get a better picture of one soon, it might go up, warts and all.