Sunday, March 05, 2006

Photography 101 - Mockingbird: Parts 2 & 3

Part 2 - Mockingbird singing by the west fence - late morning




Part 3 - Mockingbird in mesquite - early afternoon

Friday afternoon I heard a mockingbird singing in the mesquite tree outside my study window. There were several other birds singing and it echoed their songs. The tree was backlit and silhouetted by the almost blinding southwest sun but I managed to spot the bird. It was challenging trying to photograph it as it flew through the tree, lighting on a branch to sing a song and then flying to another vantage point.







The first photo in Part 3 is a full-size untouched photo. I cropped the other four and then did some histogram adjustments. My next indoor assignment for myself is to learn about dodging and burning so I can alter areas surrounding the subjects of interest.

5 comments:

robin andrea said...

Pam-- These photos are absolutely beautiful. There is something so spectacular about a bird with its wings spread like that. It all happens so quickly we don't often have an opportunity to see it in life that way. Just beautiful.

Pam in Tucson said...

RD - It's so exciting to be able to catch on a sensor these fleeting moments and then discover them in the processing. I'm discovering such beauty in things I've taken for granted or just have never been aware of at all.

T. Beth said...

That last photo of the backlit Mockingbird in flight is marvelous! I don't think that I've ever seen a photo like that one before. It's almost surreal-looking.

Cyn Bagley said...

WOW... great job.

Pam in Tucson said...

t.beth - Isn't it amazing what you can get when you just aim and shoot and hope? I was blown away when I enlarged it on the computer. Such magic in nature that our own sensors can't register.

cynthia - Thanks! and thanks so much for coming by again.