Hi all and happy saturday! Today I’m happy to report that I did a lot of the things I wanted to do to work on improving my photography. I did a bit of reading in a book called The Essential Guide to Bird Photography. It suggested trying to focus on taking a bunch of pictures of one species, perhaps taking pictures of other birds as they showed up. It also suggested getting a longer lens, which I might do at some point. And it suggested that different birds might be better photographed at different times of the day depending on their coloration.
I decided to try taking the book’s advice about focusing on one type of bird. Since I’d like to be able to practice a lot, I figured a common bird like the seagull would be a good starting point. However, when I got to Edgewater Park, there was a beautiful group of ducks relaxing on a log quite close to shore so I decided to focus my attention on them instead. I stayed at the park for about an hour and took several hundred pictures. It was awesome! It made me realize how often I wander while doing photography, taking a few pictures of one thing and then moving on to something else. Focusing on one subject for so long allowed me to pay more attention to the background and gave me time to remember to take both horizontal and vertical shots. Since I was taking bird pictures, I think it also helped me get a feel for how they move and start anticipating interesting shots. Now I just need to sort through all the pictures I took!
Any constructive criticism of these pictures or advice for bird photography in general would be greatly appreciated. If you’re interested in photography, you can also hop over to the Snapshot Saturday link-up for more.
Doing Dewey 
Bird photography is Hard! Thanks for the link to the bird photography book, I will try to check that out. I do love your 4th photo with his purple gorgeousness displayed so well and highlighted in the sun. It’s very hard managing shadows and dark/light on birds. Ducks are a great subject to practice with- they’re big, you can get close and they tend to sit still. My husband is a photographer, and the two thing I’ve learnt most from him are to watch the shadows and where the light is coming from, so sometimes moving position, even a little bit can help quite a bit, also to underexpose white birds more than I would expect to get detail in the white. I dabble with bird photography too, but am no photographer really. I got a new Canon Super Zoom camera a few months ago, the zoom lets me capture a lot of birds I wouldn’t have been able to photograph previously, and actually helps me see more birds. I’ve got birds this week too.
Thanks for the great comment! I’ve definitely got some problems with lighting here, with only about half the pictures I took having the birds eyes clearly visible because of the shadows. I’ll have to keep that in mind next time 🙂
So pretty!!!!
Thanks Rebecca!
Your photos are terrific, especially the ones that show off his gorgeous purple feathers! I’d like to have a longer lens too but it’s not in the budget any time soon!
Thanks! Those are some of my favorite too. I need to do some research on the lens thing. You can get pretty cheap ones, but I suspect you get what you pay for, so they may be out of my budget for a while as well!
Those are lovely! I’m not a great photographer, but I end up having to cover a lot of events for my job. My default option is to stay for awhile and take a ton of photos because, eventually, I get a few good ones.
Thanks Kim! After my experience yesterday, I think I need to take a lot of pictures of one subject more often. It did give me a ton of photos to sort through, but I think it’s worth the time to end up with good pictures more often 🙂
These are really great! I love the two where you can see the color underneath the brown on the wings, the dark blueish/purple color looks so pretty! 🙂
Alice @ Alice in Readerland
Thanks Alice! I loved when they moved so you could see that and those pictures ended up being some of my favorites 🙂