CHICKADEE DREAMS

Like all photographers, I have my dreams…one of which is making a great shot of a chickadee. Trust me, I haven't set the bar too high. I'm not looking for the spectacular—just a modestly good image. Merely a picture of a chickadee—Carolina or black-capped, we have both here and either will do—sitting on a limb, in nice light, with every feather sharp and showing detail, plus a catchlight in the eyes. 

That's my chickadee dream. A quintessential image. Something not all that different than shots I've taken of cardinals and bluejays and red-bellied woodpeckers. I see such photos on other blogs all the time. Sometimes I look at them and mutter enviously. I'm a reasonably competent photographer. I have more than adequate gear. I know how to compensate for various light. And Lord knows, chickadees are neither shy nor uncommon—so it can't be lack of opportunity.  

Fine. Then what's the problem? 

Luck? Karma? Some self-blocking conflict of inner psychological turmoil stemming from a youthful nightmare involving chickadees and the bogeyman? I flat don't know. I've made dozens of photo attempts, perhaps hundreds. And I've come close…but close, as they say, only counts in hand-grenades and horseshoes. The photo at the top of this post certainly doesn't qualify. In fact, when I came upon it while sorting through my latest endeavors, I almost gave it the ol' delete click for banishment into digital purgatory. But then I thought…hey, this kinda sums up my chickadee dreams frustrations.     

NATURE'S STAINED GLASS

To a lot of photographers, harsh, straight-on backlight can be a bane to making a picture, or at least an unwelcome difficulty to be worked around—either necessitating a move to change the angle of the shot, or by adding fill flash. A shutterbug's gotta do what a shutterbug's gotta do, I suppose.

When it comes to nature photography, my personal shooting philosophy is to keep things as natural and spontaneous as possible. I'll move around to work a scene or subject, but I'm also prone to try and make my first shots from the original angle, thinking there must have been something worthwhile there which caught my eye in the first place. Artificial light is employed only as a last resort.

Mind you, I'm not saying my way is the only way, or even the best way. Nor that you shouldn't adjust your shooting position, or even pop a flash now and then. Just that I try to minimize being a stage manager or lighting director. I prefer to embrace the conditions at hand and try to find a way to work with what I'm given, recording rather than creating. The creative part, for me, is finding the shot and getting an image that captures the essence of its attraction. Backlight becomes a tool rather than an obstacle…and sometimes the primary impetus for the shot.

The butterfly shot, above, is a good example. As butterfly images go, it isn't much good. You'd never use it to show someone what a common Buckeye Butterfly, Junonia coenia, looked like; it isn't even a "pretty" or "artsy" butterfly image. Nope, what caught my eye, and prompted the photo, was that dastardly backlight itself—strong morning sunshine streaming straight at the butterfly…and through its wings!

I saw this not as "Butterfly the Insect," but  "Butterfly as Stained-Glass." Nature's stained glass. 

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AUTUMN ONCE-REMOVED

A little bit abstract…

a smidgen of impressionistic…

a soupçon of reversed reality.

That's what you get when you view autumn as reflected off the surface of a lake or stream.

A shimmering, sometimes dreamy rendition that can be close to the real thing…

or no more than a colorful smear—colors juxtaposed and intermingled, as if the scene might have been shattered and hastily reassembled, now recognizable only because the hues look as though they could have come from the seasonal palette.

Autumn, yet not quite autumn; autumn once-removed.

I like to photograph things as seen in water's mirror.

A good thing, I suppose, seeing as how my front yard is a pastoral river with pools and riffles and lots of available reflections.

At least I don't have to go far to practice my predilection.

Do you like autumn's once-removed views?

Double-click, let me know…I'd be curious to hear.

TAKEN OR MADE?

Yesterday evening, I picked up my camera, went out to check on the sunset—and got waylaid by a cloud. Not a particularly photogenic cloud, either. In fact, a rather plain cloud, small and unprepossessing, decidedly ordinary as clouds go. Still, I felt it had possibilities… Maybe it was the sort of charcoal smudging along its front, as if wherever it had been earlier, somewhere out of sight beyond the western horizon, that place had been a bit on the grimy side. I understood and sympathized. As a fellow traveler, I often find myself rather grubby after a long journey. The sky itself was not doing much to give the cloud a boost. The blue was dull and slightly grayish, like an oft-washed tee-shirt that still has color but long ago lost its brightness. Between moments of keeping an eye on the cloud and the lackadaisical sunset, I looked around and tried to find something to isolate and photograph. A long time ago, when I bought my first camera, the fellow who sold it to me and later became both mentor and friend, gave me an excellent piece of advice: “Don’t ever go out with the idea of taking photographs,” he said. “Thieves take things. You’re not a thief…you’re an artist; artists create, they make things. Learn to create and make photographs.” The distinction is, I believe, the fundamental difference between good photographs and snapshots. Photography isn’t equipment—it’s a conjoined mind and eye. An awareness. A philosophy of approach. Good photographers can, to an often astonishing degree, create shots—make photographs happen. Not that I consider myself a great photographer, mind you. But the idea behind this way of thinking and doing will benefit anyone with a camera because it requires you to look, to observe, to see…and to consider what you might do with whatever you find. It isn’t magic—though it can sometimes appear so to the uninitiated. If the cloud and sunset aren’t going to cooperate, I thought after a while, how about the fading light on the surface of the water? I like water shots. There’s often a surprising amount of color caught and intensified in the reflections off dancing waves and swirling current. Then a finch landed in a tree near the deck. Maybe a silhouette? The small bird paused just long enough for me to make a single exposure. The sky grew dimmer and the single cloud was joined by similar clouds—all slightly sooty, and as a group, possibly a bit more interesting. In the end, I came back inside with a less than impressive array of shots. It happens, even given the best of intentions. Sometimes you look and look, try this and that, and nothing seems to work, or at least work well. You can usually find and make photographs…though there’s still no guarantee they’ll turn out spectacular. This was one of those evenings. No fiery sunset, no stunning clouds, no surreal water reflections. Probably the best image I managed was another silhouette—of a tree across the river with the cloud-veiled sun beyond. The image at the top of this post. You may not agree that the photos from last evening are a whit better than snapshots…but I am proud to tell you they were all made, not just taken.