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During my 3 photography sessions at Bosque recently, it was fun to find the ponds that had Sandhill Cranes on them. Furthermore, as they took flight, capturing their flight action was a delight. While I captured many frames with one of them, I have a few good keepers with two or three of them in it.
The main technical challenges with such a photograph – (1) Captured two of them in the frame, but the focus did not hit the mark on their eyes (2) One of them is in focus and the other is not (3) The wings of one of them got cut off by the frame (4) The head/eyes of the birds are not front lit (5) There are other birds in the frame, causing a distraction (6) The background such as a tree or hill, causes a clutter (7) etc etc etc.
The main physical challenges of such a photograph – (1) I had to wake up very early at 4:30am local time (2) It was very cold at 28 degrees F – I had gloves on to keep my hands warm, but it was impossible to operate my camera with thick gloves on – I would make photos until my hands almost froze and then thaw in gloves for a while before trying again.
The golden color on the birds in this photograph is a result of the low rising sun.
Sandhill Cranes, Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, USA
I went to Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge to photograph birds. However, after dusk, when this warm/cool contrast landscape presented itself to me, I couldn’t resist. You will notice how the warm orange light enveloping the horizon, contrasts the cool blue tones in the foreground water.
Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, USA
During a recent road trip, I spent a dusk session and a dawn session at the White Sands National Park in New Mexico. The unique feature of this national park, as you know, is the large gypsum dunefield.
This is one of my first keepers from my first visit to the park, one dusk. A very standard shot. Extremely wide angle lens, close the foreground. The width of the lens allows for inclusion of the distant peak. Adjust the lens position every so slightly to see big differences in the composition. Keep adjusting until you see a perfect composition through the eyepiece, corner to corner. Focus on the foreground area of the composition, about 1/3rd of the composition from the bottom. Set the aperture to f/22. Using the aperture priority exposure mode, auto-bracket several exposures. Pick the one exposed far to the right (histogram) without blowing the highlights.
Sand Pattern, White Sands National Park, New Mexico, USA
During a recent road trip, I spent a dusk session and a dawn session at the White Sands National Park in New Mexico.
What you see is not snow. It is white gypsum sand. Truly one of the world’s natural wonders. White Sands National Park preserves a major portion of the world’s largest gypsum dunefield.
As I was wrapping up my first visit to this park one dusk, I hung around a little longer to observe the color changes in the sky. I was rewarded with this pink sky to complement the white sands.
White Sands and Pink Sky, White Sands National Park, New Mexico, USA
During a recent road trip, I spent a day and a half at the Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. By far, it is one of the best places I have photographed birds.
A day and a half usually means one dawn session, one dusk session and another dawn session the following day. No photography is done in the middle of the day, between dawn and dusk.
When I visit a place for the first time ever, I rarely make any good photographs. I am so unfamiliar with the place that most of my mental energy is dissipated in just figuring out the roads or the points to stop at, or simply getting an overview of the place. Consequently, during my very first dawn session, I made some frames, but no keepers.
In my second visit, the dusk session of day 1, I made this photograph. I discovered the location from which I could get close to the sandhill cranes. However, in this session, the whole landscape was more important to me, than the birds themselves,. The post sunset pink in the sky and its reflection in the water, brackets the birds. Furthermore, the bluish cast of the distant hills nicely complements the bluish gray on the birds themselves.
This is my first ever pano photograph made with my 200-500mm lens at the 500mm end. Several vertical frames were shot overlapping each other and this panoramic frame was stitched together in Lightroom. The final file is 85 megapixels, suitable for a large fine art print.
Is this a landscape photograph or wildlife photograph? Email me at info@pixgaga.com on your thoughts.
Sandhill Cranes, Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, USA
Although the pandemic has dampened our air travel, I have not slowed down on my weekend road trips. Winter is a special time offering unique spectacles. Unusually saturated blue skies are more easily seen in the winter. In a recent road trip, I was passing by Gardnerville, Nevada, when I chanced upon this red-tailed hawk at the top of the tree. It was early morning and furthermore, the low sun provided great front lighting.
If you have ever worked on photographing birds, you will know that you can never feel satisfied with how close you get. Going even closer is desirable for you, the photographer, to fill the frame with more of the bird. The bird was on this tree that was behind a fence and I couldn’t get any closer, physically. I started with my 200-500mm f5.6 lens at the 500mm end. Not close enough. Then, I added the 1.4x teleconverter. Still not close enough (the bird is too small in the frame). Finally, I added the 2x teleconverter. I wanted to have a closer reach, but this was it.
Now, this lens configuration puts me at 1000mm with a maximum aperture of f/11. You will realize that most camera systems do not offer autofocus at this aperture. Mine doesn’t either. The next part of the challenge is to achieve focus. Pretty much all of my photography is based on autofocus, but this one had no option but manual. I wear progressive eye glasses, which as you know are optimized for driving when I am looking through it horizontal to the ground, but can help me read fine print if I keep the book just below my chest and look through the corner of the glasses. I was wearing these during the shoot. Looking through the eyepiece and trying achieve perfect focus manually, trusting my eyes to discern the exact setting, is a futile exercise. I did my best and made at least a hundred frames, with slightly varying positions of the focus ring, around what my eyes told me was good focus. Then, I prayed, that at least one of those frames should be perfectly in focus. Yes, the bird sat still for all of the 20 minutes I worked to photograph it.
Here’s the result. I got just one critically sharp frame from those ~100. The most important aspect of this photograph for me, is the sharp eye with glint in it.
Although the pandemic has dampened our air travel, I have not slowed down on my weekend road trips. Winter is a special time offering unique spectacles. In Northern California, it is easy to get to snow, as you go towards the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Last month, as I was passing through Groveland, California, I came across this hillside forest. It had fresh snow, perfect side-lighting and a great pattern of the vertical tree trunks. I loved the pattern, the contrast and the texture. A great representation of California’s winter.
This scene was a bit away from me and therefore I used the Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 lens and framed this at about 180mm. Since the nearest part of the image is already far away, I knew that an aperture of f/11 is enough to meet the depth of field needs. I bracketed several exposures to finally picked the capture with the right leaning histogram.
I have visited the Lake Tahoe area several times. Here are two images of the exact same location, Emerald Bay, shot in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The light is the differentiator.
Sunrise at Emerald Bay, South Lake Tahoe, CA, USAEmerald Bay, South Lake Tahoe, California, USA
I visited Dubai for a few days and knew before going, that I had to get a shot of the Burj Al Arab. As a photographer, it is never a good idea to drive straight to the building or monument, it’s gate, to make a good photograph. Since I didn’t have several days to revisit Burj Al Arab, to conceive a good composition while on location, I had to do a bit of homework beforehand. Based on quick research, I became aware of a good outdoor mall near Burj Al Arab, the Souk Madinat Jumeirah. My imagination led me to conceive an image of Burj Al Arab, with parts of Souk Madinat Jumeirah as the context. This is the image I ended up making. A good unplanned outcome is the cool blue lighting on the building, contrasting with the warm lighting of the foreground buildings from Souk Madinat Jumeirah. Most travel photographers, like to be free of the burden of a tripod, but given my landscape photography background, I carry a light tripod for such occasions. Using a tripod ensured the high quality and sharpness of this 2 minute exposure.
