birds

The Color of Light

f/32, 5 sec, at 270mm, 200 ISO, on a NIKON D7000

f/32, 5 sec, at 270mm, 200 ISO, on a NIKON D7000I started thinking that I am just gonna post about whatever’s I happen to be doing – just like I did before. I guess those of you whom might (is that suppose to be who or whom?) get bored no one if forcing you to read.

Yesterday  was just another day really, truly, nothing much special happening here. I got up and went to Adaptive PE. I came home. KRP drove me out to the Mather Park. The swans had left the small lake and so there were only a few small Canadian geese that had the park duck mentality – feed me bread. I noticed some of them had those tracking rings on their legs. At the dock where they were hanging hoping for a hand out – people fish – especially kids. A couple of the geese were sadly wounded. Mostly leg injuries caused by fishing line and tackle. It was really sad and I finally left because I could not stand thinking about it. I felt helpless and it really pissed me off. When I fish I do not toss my line in where there are birds. Then I started feeling guilty that maybe some of my lost line had done this somewhere to some bird. So – I left.

I uploaded my photos to the computer and took a look at them. Next, I decided to try and take a picture of my little Angry Birds as I dropped them. I really need more practice on that one :). I moved on to playing with the white balance on the camera. Light is such a neat thing – I guess it is a thing? – although sometimes it does seem alive. I think the white balance on the new camera is more accurate than the old one. It might be fun to go out light painting. I played around with my little stuffed birds just cause – cause they are here. Zoom in zoom out . …

We only see the visible light in the spectrum (electromagnetic waves) and every light source is different. Kind of fun to play with when taking pictures. In a parking lot the overhead lights can make neat looking areas tinted green or some other color – and sometimes it looks like the light post is in a halo. Well, ok maybe not so awesomely cool to everyone. All sorts of stuff to learn about the color of light. The temperature of light is measured in Kelvin in my digital camera. 10,000 is real blue and 1000 red. The camera has setting for white balance in order to compensate for different lighting situations and end up with an accurate rendering of what our eyes see. Tell the camera what color the light is and it adjusts for you. Shoot a photo under a indoor lamp and it probably will turn out with a yellow/orange tinge if you forget to tell the camera that hey I am shooting under an incandescent lamp. the camera does have an auto white balance setting and the camera tries to get it right but it does not always do so.

On a normal sunny day if I want more reds I adjust, more blues – adjust. I always wonder if what I see as blue is what you see as blue? Unless your color blind if I hold up something blue we both will say oh that is blue. But is the blue you see the same as the blue I see? We both identify the light reflected as blue but . …

My favorite setting is Pre. That is where I take a gray colored card, hold it up in the light I will be shooting in, press a few buttons and most likely what I see is what the camera will render – color wise. No more blue egg yolks or red lakes. Usually I am to lazy to get out the gray card (if I even remembered to bring it). I have a cute little target deal that my friend Steve gave me years ago that I can clip to my camera bag – guess I will get up right now and clip on there before I forget.

Ok the target is attached! Sometimes I look at photos that cross into my stream on google or flickr and realize that some of them are just cool because they were taken somewhere most of us have never been so I like them because they show me some place or something I will probably never see. Then I enjoy some because they are good photographically – this includes zooms that come out looking like psychedelic posters. Technically they were hard to pull off. Then I look at some and go oh I have a bunch just like that on my drive. So I wonder? what do people see, think, react to when they look at mine? I have more fun trying to figure out technically how to pull something off or when the result is exactly what I saw how I envisioned the scene and relays to me how I felt at the time. Then again, does it really matter what someone else thinks? I think to me it does as I appreciate feedback – yet on the other side of the equations – I take them for me and never share some of them.

What I Share or Don’t

Years ago I would take a picture and run to my computer excited to share it with my readers and on flickr. I take many photos that never make it to the blog and I always forget to upload my photos to flickr now. When I do post it is not usually my favorite or what I might consider the best shot of the batch, sometimes I even put up some losers and photos that really do not excite me but are OK. I started a little album where I print out and hoard my favorites photos without sharing them and I am not really sure why I started doing it? Umm?

I spend a lot of time just sitting and waiting. I always have a goal in my mind. Sometimes it is to catch a little bird (LB -for you Donna) that is hopping around in the weeds. Seriously, some of those LB are a pain in arse to capture. Other times I have no goal in mind I just walk about photographing what catches my attention. I am always ever so hopeful to get the National Geographic Cover shot as my friend Chuck calls it – the one of a life time – hope I recognize if/when one of those photos happens 🙂 .

I think I have started doing something very similar with the blogging. I do not share much anymore and I can not say that I get excited about posting much anymore. Quite honestly the stuff I really want to discus would probably come off wrong, be misunderstood or my opinion more than likely would be considered unkind to some. So I tuck my thoughts away and stifle the urge. Not sure where I was heading with this one so I will end it here.

A few from yesterdays trip to the refuge (and yeah I know I can take photos without having to go somewhere – snark).

This next bunch of photos from last night are not photographically great but I cropped them so you can see the carnage. Do not look at them if the feeding habits in nature gross you out or if you really have a great love for bull frogs.

The Hunt for Birds

butterfly Colusa

See you laterKRP was off a couple of days this week so she took me out hunting birds. We made it to the Colusa Refuge – lots of ducks, a few Egrets, but otherwise most of the big birds have not arrived yet. Everything is about 2 weeks behinds schedule here. Even the rice, corn, and squash fields have not been plowed or harvested yet. So it was rater a bust finding any Sandhill Crane birds.

I really enjoy sitting outside away from the noise of the city and the blah blah blah of all the silly people in this neighborhood – the birds of a different feather.  I just drive out to the refuge and sit there for hours.  I listen to the different birds singing out their songs and I even hear there wing beats if it is quit enough. The frogs croaking, the bees and (unfortunately) wasps buzzing it is quite the symphony.  If something interest me I try and snap a picture. Sometimes the birds and sometimes?

In one section of the refuge the staff flooded two fields. Seriously, there were over a hundred cranes – putting the birds just about an eighth of a mile out of the range of my longest lens. ha! I waited on the other side of the refuge hoping a few birds would fly over and land – a few did the other night – but nope no cranes. So I started waiting out the little sparrows that hide up in the weeds along the edges of the trails and pond. Eventually a few little immature White Crowned Sparrows (the strips on their heads are kind of a chestnut rust color and no white more gray on the heads so fairly sure of identification)  started hopping in and out of the brush.  It is hard to locate them and take a picture of  them when they come out – an I tell you those little birds  are quick!

I am starting to wonder about myself. I am sitting forever watching birds? Field guide at my side? a have a vision of my grandparents in mind here . ..