Tag: birds

Smoke Signals

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, Seascape3 Comments

There was this “plume” of clouds in the sky that reminded me of the smoke signals I remember seeing in old Western movies, except that it was more contiguous than the separate puffs that I remember from the movies.

I was trying to get an average exposure, but no matter what I did that day the birds in the boat just “glowed”, the intensity of the afternoon sun I guess was just too much for my camera lens/sensor.

I only looked back at this image today and decided to process it through anyway 🙂

Canon EOS 60D  |  Sigma 10-20mm EX Lens (@20mm, 1/125s, ISO100)

Click on the image to see it in the Black and White Gallery, along with many other of my Black and White images.

2014 Deck – Week 11

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography2 Comments

This week’s photo is about Implied Motion.  OK, I lied, it’s a photo of a Jhandi flag at the Kingston seashore, but as it turns out it is one of those images that displays implied motion (at least for me)

Whenever we try to convey the idea of motion in a still photograph we usually do one of two things, we either have the main subject show motion blur with the background or rest of the scene in focus (such as light trails at night on the street, or a speeding cyclist, slightly blurred with the track sharply in focus)  or we do the reverse, with the main subject in focus but the background blurred (such as in panning shots, or a pedestrian in front of a speeding minibus – by “in front of” I mean with respect to the camera, not the business end of the minibus – although that would make a dramatic photo of a different sort).  🙂

Another method might be to blur everything, such as taking a photo from inside a moving vehicle, creating that “vortex” look (on a side note, using the zoom on the camera while standing still produces neat effects too)

Chrono Photography is also a neat trick used to convey motion, by capturing multiple instances of a moving subject and then layering them in your favourite photo software creates a good sense of the subjects path through the frame.

After babbling about all these ways to create a sense of motion in a still photo, I will just say that I used none of the above for this photo.

This photo is either serendipitous or pure photographer’s luck (hmm, maybe one has something to do with the other).  I had stepped out of my office intending to walk around a few blocks, upon looking up at the sky I notices the clouds in a lovely “blown” pattern, I decided to walk to the seawall instead.  I have taken many photos of the roundhouse before (and will probably take many more), I have also  taken many photos of Jhandi flags before (and will likely take many many more), but that day I saw the clouds in a dispersed pattern, a Jhandi flag blowing in the wind with the roundhouse as a backdrop, and I decided to compose and shoot it, I took a few exposures, then saw five birds flying from the roundhouse towards me… Serendipity!

I was also shooting with the Sigma 10-20 Ultra-wide lens on the camera, so I also got a bit of lens distortion at the edges that helped with the appearance of motion in the clouds toward the edges even more.

That’s a lot of preamble for one photo, but I hope I bored you enough that the photo is now more pleasing 🙂

Canon EOS 60D  |  Sigma 10-20mm

1/250s, f/11, ISO 100  |  6°49’34” N 58°9’45” W

Click on the image to see it in the gallery along with other images from this year’s Deck Project

Bob

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

I was walking along the seawall last year when I spotted these three birds on the rocks near the waterline, I was fortunate enough to get off one photo of them together before they separated further (in no small part to my approach)

Whenever I see three birds together I always think of Brother Bob, Bob Marley, simply because of those words in the song… “Three little birds, Pitch by my doorstep”

The song was actually called “Three Little Birds”, but most everyone I know refers to it as “Don’t Worry” or “Every Little thing’s Gonna be alright”

So these aren’t exactly little birds, and they certainly weren’t singing sweet songs, but they still reminded me of the song.

Hope you like it:

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-55mm  |  1/500s, f/8, 50mm, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other Bird photos

Dump

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography8 Comments

I can’t remember where we were going this day, but I do remember wanting to get the photograph, although we were quite a distance away, so I used the long telephoto to quickly snap this.

This is where the City’s garbage dump meets the Body Dump, or more respectfully called the Le Repentir Cemetery.

The smoke was drifting across from the burning garbage (it apparently spontaneously combusts periodically), the excavator was clearing some paths and moving some garbage, and the birds were just hanging around for the “disturbed” earth and garbage.  🙂

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery!

Three Little Birds

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography14 Comments

Sometime back I had mentioned to Bob Zeller, who is a superb bird photographer, that I had taken a few photos of birds in my journey as a photo-hobbyist.  They are nothing as good as Bob gets, but I like to think they have a little merit  🙂   Another photographer who also has superb photos of birds is David Fernandes, who doesn’t have a blog that I know of, but has some lovely images on his site.  If you get a chance please check out Bob’s blog and David’s site, especially if you are a bird watcher!

Some of you may have already seen these images, as they are not new, the last “birds” I shot was a pair of ducks wobbling along the road.

I don’t have one of those nice 400 or 500mm lenses that do such nice jobs of bird photography, so I have to rely on being luckily close to the bird or just crop the image to get a nice final composition  🙂  I thought that I wouldn’t try to lump them all into one blog-post, and being inspired by Bob’s photography and Bob Marley’s song “Three Little Birds”  I thought that three images would be just right for this post.  By the way, I don’t think the two Bobs are related.

First up is a little fellow that visited the house across the street from me whilst that house was under construction, I suppose that it should be no surprise that with the wood around for construction, he and another pal visited, and when the word was done, I never saw them back there again  🙂

 

The Wood and the Woodpecker

The second is the ever popular Kiskadee, one of the mobile telephone companies here even used them once as part of a campaign for their pre-paid mobile card vendors with the slogan “They’re just about everywhere”, more descriptive of the bird than the vendors, but we got the point  🙂  This one I took up at Good Hope Village on the East Coast of Demerara.

 

 

Kiskadee, Good Hope, East Coast Demerara

 

Finally there is this elusive little black and white bird that is so flighty (excuse the pun) that it is hard to get close to him for a good photo  🙂  I came out of my vehicle one day and there he was along the gutter, without trying to open my gate or anything, I reached into the vehicle for the camera and snapped off as many as I could before he flew off  🙂

 

Black and White

As you can probably tell from my nomenclature and my evasive naming of the birds, I am no bird watcher, and even with the general biology degree, the identification of bird species was not on the syllabus, so if anyone can help me with the names, scientific and local I would be grateful.  🙂

It wasn’t until I previewed this blog-post that I realized that all the birds are facing left, quite a coincidence!

UPDATE:

Bob has informed me that the first photograph of the woodpecker is a Pileated Woodpecker.  Thanks Bob.