Posts related to Birds
10 March 2008 - That bread is mine!
A heron swoops in on a bunch of greedy gulls at The Lough yesterday!
For more pictures, check out Katie’s set and Will’s photos!
In retrospect, we were very lucky with the weather for the photowalk. Just after I got home the downpour started and 60mph winds ravaged the south of the country!
I was going to upload a bunch of the photowalk shots today but I’ll let them trickle in and then post the remainer on Friday.
25 October 2007 - The crow stops here
A crow atop a STOP sign on The Grand Parade, Cork.
Shot using a fairly high ISO but bicubic resizing smudges the noise away!
20 March 2007 - Shadows of prison and freedom
A crow flies off into the freedom of the air with a crumb of bread he found on the pavement. The railings of nearby houses are like those of a prison keeping humans in and trapped and closed off.
Who is free?
11 February 2007 - Cupid’s Arrow and the birds
Cupid’s Arrow in San Francisco provides an interesting silhouette against the evening sky. If you’ve payed close attention to my photos in the past you might think this is a duplicate of another shot but it’s from a slightly different angle and wider, and I feel stronger because of the pattern the birds make in the sky. What do you think?
30 January 2007 - The lonely swan
A solitary swan swims on the calm waters of The Lough as the sun disappears at the end of the day.
Believe it or not, this is a 10 second exposure that turned out much better than I could have hoped! I balanced my camera on the edge of the Lough, set it to Aperture priority mode at f/11, dialed the exposure down two stops, flipped up the camera flash and took the shot.
How does this work?
- By setting the aperture to a fairly high value little light is let into the camera sensor.
- By setting the exposure down two stops the whole scene will be underexposed but bright areas will be exposed mostly correctly.
- Given the above settings, any dark moving objects will be completely invisible so when the flash fired it picked out the swan swimming past and even created a nice reflection in the water.
Hope that helps!
27 January 2007 - The gull and the flag
Two teenagers watch a seagull on the way back from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. The US flag flutters in the same breeze that keeps the gull aloft, who no doubt is hoping for food from the boat full of tourists.
I’m going to be shooting at a fund raising night for Cope Foundation tonight. It’s an Eighties Night in the Ambassador Hotel here in Cork. It starts at 9:30pm, tickets are €12.50 on the door, and there’ll be spot prizes throughout the night! All are welcome, especially if you can get out your 80’s gear again. Time for big hair, leg warmers and shoulder pads?
If you’re there, watch out for me and say hi!
Swans rush to the bank of the Lough looking for bread from the crazy guy hanging over the water with a large black object…
This shows off one of my favourite night-time techniques. Long exposure with a flash. The long exposure captures the background while the flash illuminates the foreground objects, along with some nice movement blur.
It works really well at parties when people are dancing, especially if you’re lucky to capture a laughing face while the body is in motion.
Yet another curious seagull on the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco. I think he has a stern, angry look on his face, probably because I disturbed him by waving a camera in his face!
11 November 2006 - A resident of Alcatraz
Alcatraz Island is now inhabited by the birds and I presume security staff but I think the birds have a better life with all the tourists around hefting lunches and sandwiches from the mainland.
Imagine the scene, me and a few of the others scrambling to get a shot of this seagull. I had my wide angle lens fitted so I had to lean forward for the gull to fill the frame! It’s a sign of how tame they are that we got this shot even if he did eye me suspiciously.
14 October 2006 - Bird flying by
A gull flies off after an inconsiderate photographer runs after it to shoot it. Beats having the kids do the running eh? They might fall!
This was taken in San Francisco, and that’s The Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I went through my shots from my August trip a few days ago and selected around one hundred images for processing. I’ll mix in a few shots over the next few week’s posts. There’s everything from bridges, street people and furniture, Memphis Minis and Alcatraz so plenty for all tastes.
Note to self – when traveling to a new timezone, change the time on your camera!