Ummm…

Sure as shootin,’ I don’t remember this shot. Ha ha. Bird feeder. But,  who are these little yellow guys? I do not remember ever seeing them at our feeder. And surely, I would have taken their picture had they been there to feed. Ha ha. And, I shot it with my trusty Canon G7 point and shoot. Wow! Sometimes I even surprise myself.

So this shot was made thru a window. For all I know the screen may have been there too. The screen would have cut down on the sharpness of the image. But you would still have a decent image. Lighting is key. It is bright sunlight. Therefore the image is just that much more sharp. The f stop is large and there is increase in sharpness thru the smaller aperture. And the shutter is automatically fast. I got lucky. I shot this? Well, I am better than I sometimes suppose. Shoot away. Otherwise there is/was nothing to talk about…

Choice

It started with a fiery dawn… And then I shot a big transport plane making a training landing – from the car as I drove down the highway. Don’t do this at home kids. Dead thing? The vulture had a go. There, choose your picture of the day.

Point and shoot. I mostly just let the camera do the settings. Yes, it ain’t professional. No control. Do I need it? I let fly. And even thru the car window. The others were thru the windows of my home. Ha ha. Every year Colleen has the window washer come. It pays to have clean windows.

Cold

-5, minus 5 degrees, brrrr… cold!! It hasn’t been this bad in a while. My pipes in my house freeze up at 8 degrees. Yup! Run the faucets continuously and hope for the best. We were traveling. Great! Our cousin kept the water running. In my car the seltzer cans froze and expanded and exploded. Fortunately the operative word was frozen! So too did my thermos of coffee, our drinks in plastic cups, and the jugs and bottles of juice – all frozen solid. Neat! And the worst was the wind shield washer fluid froze. It’s no fun driving around with salt covered wind shields.

Hey! I got a pigeon in flight alighting upon the bird feeder in Ohio. Hmmm? A long way from home? Take a picture. It took a while for me to realize that I had documented the cold on the outdoor thermometer. Everyone’s always talking about the weather…yada yada.

Amelia

I have posted about her before. Jules named her. She was a dove who nested on the sill of her bedroom six stories up in NYC exposed to predators. She bravely hatched several sets of eggs. They flew away. And then one day… Amelia returned with her extended family. At least twenty doves were there on my deck just gathered and soaking in the morning light. There was no doubt by the grouping that they all knew one another. Reunion. After that I never saw them again. Maybe they were all headed south?

Reality

It’s enough to make you vegetarian. Humane? Humanity? Where does the chicken we buy all wrapped in cellophane come from? We live amongst chicken processing plants. Birds gotta come from somewhere. They transport ‘em in trucks. Headed to their death without ever living free. Yeah, free range chicken?! Ha! Colleen has been vegetarian for a long time. If I had to kill my own cow….

Flag

I shoot flags where I see them. Here’s another roadside graphic. There was no stopping to compose and work the scene. Point and shoot. The lamp is distracting. Photoshop it out? Nah. Birds on a wire are nice. And the one bird doing a flyby is better. Not too good. Not too bad. It is surely a graphic shot.

One

I am incapable of restraint. One image. Pick one from a day’s shoot. Is there not one single image that stands out from the rest that would be worthy? One image? Pick? I am incapable. They are like children. You like them all. Among 1916 images? yes, that was the number on 9/10/22. Don’t ask. I told that story in another blog.

Shooting into a mirror… it was not even on “that” day. Position the camera. Look up. Press the shutter. Voila! I look like I belong with the other frames nearby. Not too much, but I like to think so.

Dinner

Here’s something unique in my collection. I have seldom caught one animal eating another. This fish was too big to swallow easily. As the heron struggled, I had an opportunity to shoot. Gruesome? Dinner.

Work the scene? I just shot this pose. I composed vertically. I suppose I could have cropped the image or zoomed in closer or gotten a horizontal composition. Either way the picture told the story and the image composition was not the focus of the subject at hand.

Worthy

? Well, I switched over the Sony RX100 and used its electronic zoom to get in close. I don’t see a rooster every day. I settled for a sharply focused close-up. The background was not ideal. Composition was okay for the position of the bird in the image frame. It was what I could get. The bird was on the move.

I shot the next image with my Nikon Z5 and 200mm zoom. The bird is on the move rapidly out of range. You can see the motion blur. Once again, not perfect, but I came away with an image and a memory. Sometimes you know what to do and never get the chance to put the wish onto the memory card.

Work

Too many (potential) shots, not enough time…

Photography as I have said, is not my day job. That said, I work at it. Confused? My goal was to see the puffins. Easier said than done. I had several unsuccessful prior attempts to see the cute birds. This process involved a lot of “chumming” as I was amply seasick on the boat rides over to the island in the Atlantic. And when I got there, I discovered that I had left my “big” lens home. Nope, no big telephoto to get up close and personal!

Lemons? Make lemonade.

I used my 70-300 mm zoom. So what if the “better” 80-400 mm zoom was home in NY. Dammit! What a simply stupid mistake. It could have been worse I suppose. I was using my second “good” digital camera body the Nikon D200. Why am I equipment obsessed? A better camera does not a better photographer make. But it helps. Oh well!? I shot a lot that/this day. They had to drag me out of the blind when time was up. Sometimes the work you do to get “there” makes it all the more precious. My images were fine and you’d never know the difference my other lens might have made. It remains unfinished business and I’d go back again in a heartbeat – seasickness and all!