On composition, part eight: Clean fill wanted

So now, let’s talk about another aspect of controlling your photography – well, actually, I’ll “talk,” you’ll “listen.” That’s how a blog works, unless of course you actually decide to comment (you are more than welcome to, you know.)

Anyway, the impression of many people is that nature photography means taking things as they are, capturing only read more

New neighbors

It’s funny – a few weeks ago I had something like four or five ideas about posts, all having to do with religion, and no other topics coming to mind, nor was any other blog providing inspiration. I try to rotate and break up topics so I don’t appear obsessively obsessive, so I struggled with splitting them up and finding other things to insert between. Now, I have four nature-themed read more

Just pics



Nothing elaborate to say (for once,) just some pics from yesterday. I really liked the effect above – just the right light levels, I think. When I was a tiny little blogger, I used to be scared of jumping spiders, because of their menacing hairy appearance, near total fearlessness, and my mistaken belief that they were black widows (children get to hear the stories read more

The lucky ones


Through both Ophelia Benson and Jerry Coyne this morning, I found out that the mother eagle we’ve been watching raise her brood on the EagleCam at Norfolk Botanical Garden, collided with a plane and was killed yesterday morning. The father is still around, but three is a large brood for eagles, and usually both parents are kept busy cycling the food to the rapidly growing youngsters.

In light read more

I like spring

I know you count on me for much deeper, more profound statements than the title, but as a nature photographer and just someone who likes playing in the mud, I go through a kind of withdrawal during the winter months, and so I’m quite happy to see the explosion of natural things to read more

Little game safari

The nice thing about macro work is, you really don’t have to go anyplace special.

I walked down to the new local park today, a pretty decent area with a dog park and some paved trails bordering a river. From a scenic standpoint it’s a bit limited, being more “cleared and planted” than natural, but it’s possible to find some areas along the river that will look pretty read more

Get familiar with it!


While I mentioned this before, people might still be surprised to know how often I turn the autofocus off when shooting pics. There are a couple of reasons for that. Mostly, it’s when I’m trying something like catching birds in midair, where they represent too small a target for the autofocus area within the camera to obtain enough contrast, so the focus winds the entire read more

Observe!

I’m quick to tell anyone who wants to listen that the key to decent photography is composition. Technical proficiency certainly helps, but no one ever looks at a photo and says, “Wow, what a great use of exposure!” It’s what is in the photo that counts, and this can actually excuse some technical faults.

But when the question is finding good nature and wildlife subjects read more

Hummer cam!

Did I excite the wrong kind of people with that title? Ah, well, too bad. Courtesy yet again of Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True comes this live hummingbird webcam, and she has zeh babbies right now! That makes a nice subject for me to kick off National Wildlife Week.

You can get more of the details at the host website right here, including read more

Cue Barry White


Yesterday I met a student at the local botanical garden and arrived early, so I did a quick tour. The NC Coastal section had been burned off recently, part of the biological maintenance which helps the new plants grow, but it meant there wasn’t much to see. However, a mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) flew up to a read more

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