Hodgepodge

I have to feel a bit sorrow for all the SoaRs out there (Spouse of a Runner) or more specific SoaIRs – Spouse of an Injured Runner. Clearly we can be a difficult lot as Linda continues to remind me daily. Beginning to think my full name is really “Don’t You Dare”, purely based on the number of times that is proclaimed lately and as far as I can tell..always directed at … well, ME. She caught me heading out to a pile of concrete with a sledgehammer the other day (we had some new concrete poured and the contractors left huge slabs for me to deal with). My excuse that it couldn’t be any worse than what the therapists were going to do me apparently didn’t hold water. The good news is Doc says the elbow is healing nicely, but wants to re-xray it in three weeks. Obligatory head nod while inner Bri goes postal “THREE WEEKS, is he crazy!?! I have a road race this Saturday and an ultra in October to train for – where did she hide that sledgehammer, I need to get on with building my strength back up …when Linda is away, of course”. While my accelerated recover plan germinates, thought I would see if I could get a quick post out. Brad was kind enough to take us along on his Huntington bird walk last we met. Unfortunately, my birding days are put on hold for some time – even decided to send The Beast in for some spa recovery time at a local Nikon repair shop – so, how about we take a walk of a different kind.

This adventure will be from the comfort (and safety) of my den. Yep, it is time for a hodgepodge of images that either didn’t make the first cut, one-offs or in some cases just some fun images that have been perpetually stuck in 5 o’clock traffic.

Hit the jump for a walk for those of us with no particular place to go.

It is kind of nice not having a playbook for a particular feature. Those that have been adventuring with me for a while, know that my posts always start with running. Not the discussion per se (although I do talk about running a lot in my preambles), rather that is where the topics come from. A nice long run gives you plenty of time to breathe in nature, figure out your pressing problems and somewhere along the trail, figure out what the hell I am going to write about next. The trick is being able to remember what you came up with when the legs are screaming, you’re dripping wet and desperately trying to recall what it is about this torturefest you find “fun”. If lucky, I head back home, jump on the computer and flesh out a new post with the images from a particular outing or series. From there I review the shots, keep the subjective “best” and delete the rest. The culled shots are moved to a discard folder likely never to be seen again. Many of today’s shots were pulled back out of that folder – maybe I decided I liked them on second review (like the first shot of the Long-Billed Curlew found at South Padre Island) or thought I would comment on why they made it to the “seconds” folder like the shot below.

The Cape-May Warbler below is part of a series that I posted on previously (link here). The one above was just a victim of having other similar images, but the one below was a failed attempt at a clever composition. You may have noticed the arcing branch in the background…I thought it would be a cool if I could match that up with the white barring on the wing. For a second I patted myself on the back for pulling that off with a rather hyper bird..then quickly realized it look more like someone shot an arrow right through the little guy.

The Orchard Oriole has a similar story in that they were both from Dauphin Island and both were featured previously (link here). At first I thought this female looked rather smug, but I have to admit, I am growing fonder of it. I would have preferred her bill up slightly more off of her tail.

Another area that tends to get scrutinized in the cut-down is color. In the last three shots we had a lot of color (some could argue too much), but I prefer that over a duller wash which this poor Willet fell victim to. They are rather pale birds to begin with and being shorebirds, they often hang out in duller earth tone color environments. If those match up, it just seems a bit blah. Think if the flats had been more sandy brown instead of grey, it would have popped the bird a lot more.

Next up a Black-Throated Green Warbler also found on Dauphin Island. Anyone familiar with bird photography knows that you are pretty much at the subject’s mercy when it comes to background/foreground. Sure, you can definitely move around and improve on the angle, but some species are especially deft at countering any move you try to make. Warblers are definitely in that category. Better be quick on the trigger as they rarely let an opportunity pass to put some form of twig or leaf in between. As long as I can get a clear shot of the head I am generally happy like in the shot below. What I didn’t like is probably the ONLY brown leaf on that tree being stabbed into its belly like a tranq dart out of an Elephant gun.

This next example is more of a digital darkroom error and definitely could have used a 2 degree shift on the positioning to keep that palm leaf from going directly into the head. If you haven’t noticed with my offerings as a whole, I almost always adhere to the rule of thirds and more primary, giving the subject room to move. In this case I was so focused on giving Mr. Hood freedom to fly forward that I left an ugly, blurry foreground element in the lower corner. I could easily fix that, but luckily there were other shots in the series that saved me from having to backtrack (another thing I hate doing).

The shot below was a late scratch in its series post. I like to give my readers a full experience with a featured bird, different angles, different poses and maybe environments. This Yellow-Throated Vireo, found at Audubon Bird Sanctuary on Dauphin Island, provided me a good shot of its bright yellow throat and how it gradually transitions into the brilliant white belly. Eventually decided to pull it as it looked like it had been drinking until 3am at the local bar and was feeling a wee bit tipsy (I didn’t want to rat it out to its mate).

Like a few of the shots above, I’ve grown to like this Dickcissal found at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Wilmington IL. The harmonies of the yellow/green palette and the fact that the key markings are all visible on the bird have led me to reconsider. I’m glad it got a second chance to be in the limelight.

All things considered, I don’t think the next shot is that bad. Got a nice pose, glint in the eye, really like how the background smoothed out but still had a touch of coloring and in this particular case, the slightly blurred foreground helps to give it depth. Maybe could have added a bit more sharpening to the upper part of the bird to pull it out like the tail.

Sometimes an image just makes me uncomfortable. The shot below of the Bank Swallow found at Montrose Beach fits that description perfectly. Overall, I like the composition, maintained the nice texture in the sand, the bird pulls out nicely, intriguing pose as it acknowledges the presence of the viewer….but who didn’t scratch their eye after looking at this picture…come on, you can admit it, that hunk of sand in the Swallows eye is getting to you. I guess if you spend a good portion of your life in the hole of a sand dune you probably get used to it. I’ll be right back, I need to go put some drops in my eyes.

Some shots just fall victim to timing. Modern day photographers owe a huge debt to the inventor(s) of the digital format. When you look across the spectrum of reducing the gap between a pro and an amateur you have to include this advancement among the examples. There was zero chance I was going to do any burst mode shooting during my film days. Quite honestly, I couldn’t afford it. It was hard enough to toss the shots I thought were going to be good, but willingly accepting tossing ‘x’ shots before and after the one I wanted … not happening in those frugal days. Today, a different story as my rig never comes off ‘Ch’. The shot below is interesting as you do not always get to see the pretty stitching on the Common Loon’s back – just wasn’t as good as the next shot in the burst which had its wings fully out (link here).

I have to confess, I worked this image to death in the digital darkroom. I spent so much time trying to get it just right in the field – centered the log, made sure I got the log’s shadow included, waited until the Spoonbill opened its eyes, shot it darker to makes sure I didn’t lose any of the white details later in processing. Even took a number of pre shots to determine which side I wanted to give space to (note, most of the time it is the direction the face is pointing for me). After all that work, decided “eh” and let it go. I might come back to it in the future with some more aggressive light manipulation.

The next shots are more of bonus material and came out of my working folder versus the castoffs. The lady who watches our dogs really likes Pelicans floating over water, so we gave her this shot in appreciation. I was working with specific frame dimensions as we already had that or I would have definitely given it more room to the left. She really liked it and in the end that is the primary goal of any customer image.

Right off the presses, a Bunny shot from our trip to Vegas earlier in the year. I may be biased, but I have seen these furballs in many places and, without question, I feel these Vegas residents are the cutest. Just look at those ears and those back feet! Problem is they either do not stay around long enough or they simply do NOT move one centimeter, so we rarely get a variety of interesting shots in a series. I may have to incorporate Wordless Wednesdays into Intrigued to handle these cute but low count series.

Speaking of cute, how about another shot from Vegas, the Henderson Bird Viewing Center to be exact. Maybe a close second to none but the Least Grebe (link here), the Eared Grebe is a joy to experience. Fluffy, beautiful contrast in the feathering and that blood red eye, well, you get the picture (see what I did there ha). This is more of tease as there will be a future post on this series. I just need to figure out which ones I want to use as I took probably 500 shots of them trying to find the ONE Horned Grebe that was hanging out there. Never did get one of those in the tin there, but if you like the Eared variety, look for that post in the future and grab some popcorn.

Beyond a few agility brags here and there I do not feature our boys very much. Here’s a shot of our nationally ranked agility star Raven. Technically my dog, but we know who he likes best ha. Here he is giving his best “Hey, I’m a bird dog why can’t I go birding with you look”. I keep trying to tell him that Gators would love to snack on a 4.8 pound Poodle, but he claims he isn’t afraid ha.

Then there is Linda’s baby, Ruger or as we like to call him “the cute one” whenever he decides to take his “own” path around the obstacle course or worse yet, gets the “zoomies” in which case nobody knows what the hell is going on in that still developing brain. Needless to say, Raven covers his face and slinks into a corner in complete embarrassment. Just like Raven everything will click some day and even though we do not admit it to Raven, he’s probably going to outshine his older brother. Ruger is more of the “I’m going to stay right here and make sure none of those Gators even try to look at my mommy”.

Well, we’ve come to the end of our virtual photowalk. You probably already deduced I am back to full typing ability now. Hope you enjoyed seeing a variety of images and learning a few insights behind the processes and decisions made here at Intrigued. I know I had fun going back through a folder I toss a lot of images in after a post, but hardly ever look at afterwards.

Take care, Linda is away, time to get some work done ha!