Wednesday, November 16, 2011

One of the questions I 'm asked is "how did you get that photograph?", and one of the statements I hear often is "you must have been lucky."  Listed below are 5 photographs I took over two days.  They are of white pelicans,  one cormorant and 2 herons.  





So now in as few words as I can possibly use is how I did it and why I was lucky.  
The first day I was returning to a site I had seen several weeks earlier.   I expected to find egret and herons.  Instead I found pelicans hundreds of them.  On that day I took 300 photographs, and on the next day I took 1549 photographs.  Yes, in two days I took 1849 photographs.  I have posted 6.  I'm sure there are others I should work on, but these 6 stood out for me.  My point of course is if you take a lot of photographs you have something to choose from.  There are some other things that help.   My camera takes 8 frames a second and , and I have a 400mm lens.  The 8 frames helps capture the action and the lens brought them close and focuses like lighting.  Although, I think the most important thing was patience.  The first day I stood in the same place for an hour and during that time I studied their behavior.  I noticed what made them nervous and how they acted when relaxed.  The second day I stood (I mean stood) in the same place for over 3 hours.  After awhile I became part of the environment and they stopped noticing me.  They started to get too close to me.  So, I went after my 70-200mm lens, and started shooting again.  Finally, most of them flew off, I guess they had better things to do.   
So how do I get the photograph?  Well I have the right equipment. I take a lot of photographs. I can be very patient.   As far as being lucky I guess in manner of speaking I was.  I didn't expect the pelicans, or to be able to photograph fish in their bill,  or catch a cormorant diving with its beak wide open.  On the other hand I just think it was a reward for being patient.  

After I had written this post I decided to add one last pic.  Click on the pic to make it bigger the one pelican in the middle is flying the wrong way, or all the others are.


                           


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